ABSTRACT
This chapter purposes to trace why political sociology has become so myopic regarding important events and threats to democratic values. Political sociology is both a key part of the American sociological tradition, and a latecomer to it. Ironically, through its own specialized "trained incapacity" to think about and address the issues, political sociology has all but ignored the antidemocratic threats and obstacles to freedom in the modern world. For example, political sociology was unable to anticipate the pre-WWII rise of right-wing totalitarianism in Germany, Italy, and Japan. The founding of sociology, as we know the discipline today, and more particularly, the origin of political sociology, is both institutionally and intellectually enigmatic. The chapter examines the ideas that emerged from one particularly rich and fertile intellectual tide pool to form what we know of as political sociology. During the late nineteenth century and the early part of the twentieth century, there were often violent political upheavals in Europe.
