ABSTRACT
In the mid-1970s, the Americo-centrism of sociology was as alive and well in urban studies, as in most other sub-disciplinary areas of sociological study. American sociology may be notoriously ethnocentric; but its parochialism pales in comparison with the narrowness of research in the sub-discipline of urban sociology, where neither history nor political economy nor studies of third world urbanism found much of an audience when the author began to teach. More negatively, the author's interest in third world cities and their history and politics severely limited his visibility within American sociology as a discipline. The study of revolutions, social movements or state formation was considered a legitimate subject of inquiry for a small but growing number of American sociologists. In sub-disciplinary terms, the New School sociology department offered a new assistant professor, because its curriculum focused on five areas of which three were the author's stated expertise: urban, political, comparative-historical, cultural, and theoretical sociology.
