Balancing essays on Herbert Blumer with Blumer's own writings on race relations, labor and management conflict, urbanization, and popular culture, this volume -- originally published as Social Order and the Public Philosophy -- establishes Blumer's thought as a basis for a public policy that remains faithful to the essential character of human life in a permanently pluralized and segmented society.

Stanford M. Lyman and Arthur J. Vidich situate Blumer's ideas in the context of earlier public philosophers such as William Graham Sumner, Herbert Croly, and Walter Lippmann. They consider the implications of Blumer's works for America's most pressing social issues and propose a sophisticated civic sociology of their own based on his studies and methods. Their new afterword affirms the rich harvest Blumer's philosophy continues to yield for postmodern society.