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In this essay, I draw on a professional life history to suggest how sociological knowledge is generated by encounters with changing research opportunities, here called targets of opportunity. In my case, a study of rural communities led to unanticipated conclusions concerning buffering mechanisms that protected authorities by absorbing dissatisfactions and rebellions. Wartime research in a military setting identified sources of group solidarity and effective performance under stress. Major societal changes in racial/ethnic relations provided opportunities to develop new concepts and empirical findings. Synoptic studies of post–World War II American society led to extensive research on values and institutions. These macrosociological analyses of ethnicity and social systems, in turn, led me to a new sociology of war and interstate relations. I also offer here some critical reflections on recurrent issues and chronic controversies in American sociology. Final sections of the review deal with the continuing search for conceptual clarity and cumulative knowledge. I note the obstacles of disciplinary fragmentation, but my closing judgment is that sociology now has the base of substantial scientific knowledge and methodological expertise necessary for investigating crucial twenty-first century problems.

Oppositions and deadly conflicts among ethnic collectivities are important around the word. Ethnies (our term for ethnic groups) also strongly affect interstate relations. Both interethnic and ethnic-state conflicts tend to be severe, protracted, and intractable. At the extremes, the stakes are total: survival versus genocide Competition and rivalry for individualized economic and political goods are important, but the most intense conflicts are to be expected when the stakes are collective goods, including categorical claims to prestige and political authority. States are major actors in creating, accentuating, or diminishing ethnic identities. States are both arenas of rivalry and conflict and resources for ethnic mobilization and counter-mobilization. Because both ethnies and states are diverse, careful specification is required for fruitful analysis. The same dictum applies for the diverse types of oppositions and of conflicts. Ethnic conflicts arise from complex combinations of ethnic strength, class, inequality, political opportunity, mobilization resources, interdependence, and international interventions. Frequent but nonviolent protests, for example, are most likely by organized collectivities with substantial resources, operating in relatively open political systems. International aid to parties in domestic conflicts appears to prolong and intensify ethnic struggles. Research in this field contends with many difficulties, and one-sided theories do not fare well. Yet abundant descriptive materials are available, statistical techniques are improving, conceptual clarification continues, and substantive knowledge does accumulate. Accordingly, there is hope for better understanding of some of the most destructive and tragic conflicts of our times.

The publication of the two-volume work The American Soldier in 1949 (Stouffer, Samuel A., et al, Princeton, Princeton U Press), as part of the Studies in Social Psychology in World War II series, aroused great scholarly interest & debate. The books were highly praised & severely criticized, & their analysis of massive worldwide data on US Army troops were widely influential. The methodological contributions included attitude scaling & scalogram analysis, field experiments on interview effects, experiments on persuasion & attitude change, & detailed analyses of large datasets in conjunction with firsthand observations of behavior. The studies demonstrated the importance for group cohesion & morale of formal military organization in interaction with small-group processes. Data from combat troops showed a relatively low prevalence of intense hostility toward enemy soldiers. Obligatory aggression in the face of severe danger, it was concluded, was sustained because of external threat from the enemy together with authoritative direction from a cohesive social organization. Among the major ideas that developed or were elaborated out of the research of The American Soldier were the concepts of relative deprivation, reference groups, structured resentment, & social control of fear. Also, The American Soldier analyzed an unprecedented body of data on racial attitudes, showing that black soldiers strongly rejected segregation & discrimination & emphasized democratic & equalitarian values. This assessment suggests that these studies had important influences on social science & made permanent additions to basic knowledge. 83 References. AA

The development of sociology as an intellectual discipline proceeded according to the input of precursors & founders in the field. Its early history is depicted & the 4 "general intellectual prerequisites" common to development of all the social sciences, are identified: (1) desacralization of the social order, (2) naturalism, (3) faith in reason, & (4) lawfulness of social phenomena. Historical aspects which affected sociology are described: the French Enlightenment, attitudes toward religion, European intellectual input, & post-1776 American ideas. American sociology is scrutinized with respect to 4 areas: (A) received ideas, (B) social values & concerns, (C) structural opportunities & constraints, & (D) organizational & institutional factors. American sociological scholars' contributions to the discipline are explored. Explicated are the roles American sociology has taken in research toward the comprehension of American social constructs, & in affecting American life in general. In the latter area 11 possible "outcomes of sociological activities" are outlined. Sociology is predicted to maintain its tendency toward diversity due to varying interests in the field. Future research will be addressed to the 2 main issues of "the problem of externalities" & "the problem of collective action." The interrelationships between sociology & other disciplines are analyzed, & social science theory is expected to continue to grow as a "loosely-connected but increasingly coherent network." C. Grindle.