Art and Joseph Bensman teamed up to write this classic study of American society in the Post World War II era. It represents one of the most important community studies in American history in so far as it reveals that rapid transition Americans were making from an agricultural rural way of life to one where federal and state governments have become more powerful than any of the founding fathers of this nation could ever have envisioned. As a portrait of a rural upstate New York town in the early 1950s it reveals the political processes and conflicts of power that have emerged as "mass society" has penetrated into the very furtherst reaches of rural America. The authors clearly reveal that the distinction between and urban and rural ways of life is a fiction of the past.
This book made Vidich and Bensman famous in the world of sociology and political science. It also made them infamous characters in the town of Candor, New York due to the fact that none of the key individuals in Candor (who are thinly disguided in this book) ever expected such publicity about their town or their lives.
This revised edition of the book provides an excellent critique of the furor and controversy after its publication. Its assessment of the ethical issues of conducting sociological research is one of the finest examples of self assessment in the sociological literature.
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