Description
New York, 1956. First edition, first printing [points: Dj shows publisher's blurb at rear panel, no review quotations]. 8vo. Cloth, dj. 423 p. 22 cm. Ex-library copy from the Oxford University Press archive, with call number at spine, some pen and a stamp at front flyleaf (plus another at p. 15) ; residue from archival glue at both pastedowns. Dj, now in mylar, storage-creased, front flap clipped, with some rubbing and light chips to extremities: overall good to very good. Gentle shelf-wear to boards at extremes ; text block unmarked, aside from the stamps.
A book that points the way for any modern theory of the social role of elites in our political economy. Its approach is structural: since the end of the second World War, Mills argues, there has been an "ever-increasing interlocking of economic, political, and military structures" (p. 8). Mills' definitive account of this triangle of interpenetrating forces was vastly influential: The Power Elite found sympathetic readers in both Fidel Castro, who sent flowers to Mills' funeral, as well as Dwight D. Eisenhower – whose notorious exposure, in his Farewell Address as President, 1961, of a "military industrial complex," was keenly elaborated from the core ideas of Mills' text.
First state copies are rare to find in this condition. A sturdy, highly collectible copy of a classic of public-facing scholarship.
