ABSTRACT
Twenty-five years after completing his study of Thomas’ radio addresses, Adorno wrote a reflective essay, “Scientific Experiences of a European Scholar in America,” in which he discussed the development of his work as a sociologist during his stay in the U.S. Although Adorno’s remarks on the Thomas manuscript play a small part in this later essay, they are in their way revelatory, and thus warrant our close examination here. In a few incisive sentences Adorno presents an encapsulated view of major elements of his conception of sociological method, and suggests that the Thomas manuscript helped establish the model of sociological investigation he came to refine in his later work. His first sociological endeavor to investigate authoritarianism (Adorno produced four additional significant works on the subject), the analysis of Thomas supplied him “with a good deal of stimulation for items that were useful” later in the preparation of the greatest of these works, The Authoritarian Personality 1
