The Sociological Imagination by C. Wright Mills

In our period, social structures are usually organized under a political state. In terms of power, and in many other interesting terms as well, the most inclusive unit of social structure is the nation-state. The nation-state is now the dominating form in world history and, as such, a major fact in the life of every man. The nation-state has split up and organized, in varying degree and manner, the ‘civilizations' and continents of the world. The extent of its spread and the stages of its development are major clues to modern and now to world history. Within the nation-state, the political and military, cultural and economic means of decision and power are now organized; all the institutions and specific milieux in which most men live their public and private lives are now organized into one or the other of the nation-states.

Social scientists of course do not always study only national social structures. The point is that the nation-state is the frame within which they most often feel the need to formulate the problems of smaller and of larger units. Other ‘units' are most readily understood as ‘pre-national,'-or as ‘post-national. ' For of course national units may ‘belong' to one of the ‘civilizations,' which usually means that their religious institutions are those of one or another of the ‘world religions. ' Such facts of ‘civilization,' as well as many others, may suggest ways to compare the present-day variety of nation-states. But as used for example by writers like Arnold Toynbee, ‘civilizations,' it seems to me, are much too sprawling and imprecise to be the prime units, the ‘intelligible fields of study,' of the social sciences.