The Anthem Companion to Robert Park

The collection attempts to come to term with Robert Park’s legacy. As will become evident, the focus is largely though not entirely on the work rather than the man. Mary Jo Deegan makes use of aspects of Park’s biography to illustrate what she sees as his disavowal of developing sociology as a moral science in the interest of objectivity. The article by Martin Bulmer addresses how Park came to understand what it meant to “do sociology” and Raymond Lee sees Park’s inquisitiveness as the guiding thread linking his journalism and sociology. Lee contends that in terms of sociological research, inquisitiveness was channeled by a theoretical orientation that was open to mixed methods research.

Lonnie Athens and Donald Reitzes address theoretical concerns, particularly as they pertain to Park’s place in relation to the pragmatist tradition, the work of George Herbert Mead and the emergence of symbolic interactionism. Athens offers a systematic comparison of Mead and Park on social action, assessing the strengths and weaknesses of both positions. Reitzes contends that Park’s contribution to social psychology has heretofore been underappreciated, and sets out to rectify that relative neglect. Peter Kivisto, Chad Alan Goldberg and Vince Marotta address aspects of Park’s contribution to race and ethnic relations, reflecting the centrality of this theme to his body of work taken as a whole. Kivisto explores Park’s understanding of assimilation, which has come to be known as the “canonical theory of assimilation.” Goldberg’s chapter engages in a parallel undertaking by exploring Park’s concept of the marginal man and the subsequent career of this concept. Marotta begins by noting that Park’s links to journalism and his focus on empirical investigation led many subsequent commentators to overlook the theoretical sophistication of his work. In his contribution, Marotta compares Park to contemporary critical race theorists. Coline Ruwet analyzes the shifts in his thinking about the city over the course of a quarter century. Specifically, she identifies three stages in the evolution of Park’s thinking. Anthony Blasi rounds out the collection, addressing a topic usually not associated with Park: religion.

Taken as a whole, it will be evident that these articles embrace no singular response to Park, but rather a broad range of responses, generally appreciative but also critical. The goal of this book is not to make a case for or against Park, but rather to encourage readers to consider the virtue of rethinking—and rereading—this major figure in American sociology. If one is left with a sense that we actually still do not know enough about Park the person and Park the sociologist, but that getting to know him on both fronts is important, then this companion will have served its purpose.