Empire and Subject Peoples: Herbert Adolphus Miller and the Political Sociology of Domination

The book outlines the sociological arguments and political activities of the US pragmatist sociologist, Herbert Adolphus Miller (1875-1951). Miller was part of the milieu of Chicago sociology and involved in its studies of race and immigration. He took a distinctly more radical approach and developed a novel political sociology of domination in which he set out a critique of empires, the plight of subject minorities and the risks associated with the inevitable nationalist responses. Where others have identified with the ’internationalisation’ of nationalism, Miller sought to make the nation ’international’. He was actively involved in movements for racial justice, Czechoslovakian independence, the formation of the Mid-European Union of subject peoples, as well as support for Korean and Indian independence. He was dismissed by Ohio State University for his activism in 1932.

Jan Balon is Senior Researcher at the Centre for Science, Technology and Society Studies, Czech Academy of Sciences, and Lecturer at the Institute of Sociological Studies, Charles University.
John Holmwood is Senior Researcher at the Centre for Science, Technology and Society Studies, Czech Academy of Sciences, and Emeritus Professor of Sociology at the University of Nottingham.