Barrington Moore Jr., a Harvard University sociologist, died in his home in Cambridge, Mass., on Oct. 16, 2005, at the age of 92. The cause of death was pneumonia.
Moore had a profound impact on a generation of scholars in the social sciences, many of whom were his students at Harvard where he taught from 1951 until 1979. As the editors of a Festschrift in his honor wrote: “There is a distinctive Moore-inspired approach to contemporary social science, even if there is no orthodox Moore School.” This approach included a commitment to tackling important questions, an aversion to models that ignored the historical situation in which social change takes place, and a commitment to interdisciplinary work that is comparative and historical.
Moore was a classics major at Williams College and received a Ph.D. in sociology at Yale University where he worked with Albert Galloway Keller. During World War II, he served as a strategic analyst in the OSS, along with Herbert Marcuse, H. Stuart Hughes, Franz Neumann, and many others. Afte
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Barrington Moore Jr.
American sociologist (1913–2005)
This article is about the sociologist. For the forester (his father), see Barrington Moore, Sr.
Barrington Moore Jr. (12 May 1913 – 16 October 2005)[1] was an American political sociologist, and the son of forester Barrington Moore.
He is well-known for his Social Origins of Dictatorship and Democracy (1966), a comparative study of modernization in Britain, France, the United States, China, Japan, Russia, Germany, and India.[2] The book puts forth a neo-Marxist argument that class structures and class alliances at particular points in time can account for the kinds of social revolutions that occurred and did not occur in those countries, putting some countries on a path to democracy, whereas others were put on a path to authoritarianism or communism.[3][4] He famously argued, "no bourgeois, no democracy," which emphasized the important role played by a large middle-class in accomplishing democratization and ensuring democratic stability.[5]
Early life, educati •
Barrington Moore Sr.
Barrington Moore (1883-1966) was an American forester and forestry researcher.[1] He served as the fourth president of the Ecological Society of America and as the first editor-in-chief of its journal, Ecology. Moore chaired the Society of American Foresters' (SAF) Committee on Forest Policy, served as editor-in-chief of its Journal of Forestry, and represented the society on the National Research Council's biology division. Moore also served as secretary of the Council on National Parks, Forests, and Wildlife[2] and as associate curator of woods and forestry at the American Museum of Natural History in New York City.
Early life and education
Moore was born on September 25, 1883, the son of Clement Clarke Moore. He attended Craigie's School and Morristown School (now Morristown-Beard School) in Morristown, New Jersey before graduating from St. Mark's School in Southboro, Massachusetts in 1902.[3] Moore then completed his bachelor's degree at Yale University in 1906 and his master's of forestry degree at Yale'