David Riesman (born in Philadelphia,
PennsylvaniaThe Commonwealth of Pennsylvania , often colloquially referred to as PA by natives and Northeasterners, is a state located in the Northeastern and Middle Atlantic regions of the United States...
, September 22, 1909; died in
Binghamton, New YorkBinghamton is a city located in the Southern Tier of New York in the United States. "The Parlor City" and the "Home of the Square Deal," it is the county seat of Broome County and the principal city and cultural center of the Greater Binghamton region...
, May 10, 2002), was a
United StatesThe United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
sociologist,
attorneyA lawyer, according to Black's Law Dictionary, is "a person learned in the law; as an attorney, counsel or solicitor; a person licensed to practice law." Law is the system of rules of conduct established by the sovereign government of a society to correct wrongs, maintain stability, and deliver...
, and educator.
After graduating from
Harvard Law SchoolHarvard Law School is one of the professional graduate schools of Harvard University. Located in Cambridge, Massachusetts, it is the oldest continually-operating law school in the United States and is home to the largest academic law library in the world. HLS typically ranks among the top law...
, where he was a member of the
Harvard Law ReviewThe Harvard Law Review is a journal of legal scholarship published by an independent student group at Harvard Law School.-Overview:The Review is one of the most cited law reviews in the United States. It is published monthly from November through June, with the November issue dedicated to covering...
, Riesman
clerkedA law clerk or a judicial clerk is a person who provides assistance to a judge in researching issues before the court and in writing opinions. Law clerks are not court clerks or courtroom deputies, who are administrative staff for the court....
for
Supreme CourtThe Supreme Court of the United States is the highest judicial body in the United States, and leads the federal judiciary. It consists of the Chief Justice of the United States and eight Associate Justices, who are nominated by the President and confirmed with the "advice and consent" of the Senate...
Justice
Louis BrandeisLouis D. Brandeis was a United States Supreme Court Justice from 1916 to 1939. He was born in Louisville, Kentucky to Jewish parents who had immigrated from Europe...
from 1935-1936. He also taught at the University of Buffalo Law School.
Riesman's 1950 book,
The Lonely CrowdThe Lonely Crowd is a 1950 sociological analysis by David Riesman, Nathan Glazer, and Reuel Denney. It is considered -- along with White Collar: The American Middle Classes, written by Riesman's friend and colleague C. Wright Mills -- to be a landmark study of American character.- Description...
, a sociological study of modern conformity, which postulates the existence of the "inner-directed" and "other-directed" personalities.
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David Riesman (born in Philadelphia,
PennsylvaniaThe Commonwealth of Pennsylvania , often colloquially referred to as PA by natives and Northeasterners, is a state located in the Northeastern and Middle Atlantic regions of the United States...
, September 22, 1909; died in
Binghamton, New YorkBinghamton is a city located in the Southern Tier of New York in the United States. "The Parlor City" and the "Home of the Square Deal," it is the county seat of Broome County and the principal city and cultural center of the Greater Binghamton region...
, May 10, 2002), was a
United StatesThe United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
sociologist,
attorneyA lawyer, according to Black's Law Dictionary, is "a person learned in the law; as an attorney, counsel or solicitor; a person licensed to practice law." Law is the system of rules of conduct established by the sovereign government of a society to correct wrongs, maintain stability, and deliver...
, and educator.
After graduating from
Harvard Law SchoolHarvard Law School is one of the professional graduate schools of Harvard University. Located in Cambridge, Massachusetts, it is the oldest continually-operating law school in the United States and is home to the largest academic law library in the world. HLS typically ranks among the top law...
, where he was a member of the
Harvard Law ReviewThe Harvard Law Review is a journal of legal scholarship published by an independent student group at Harvard Law School.-Overview:The Review is one of the most cited law reviews in the United States. It is published monthly from November through June, with the November issue dedicated to covering...
, Riesman
clerkedA law clerk or a judicial clerk is a person who provides assistance to a judge in researching issues before the court and in writing opinions. Law clerks are not court clerks or courtroom deputies, who are administrative staff for the court....
for
Supreme CourtThe Supreme Court of the United States is the highest judicial body in the United States, and leads the federal judiciary. It consists of the Chief Justice of the United States and eight Associate Justices, who are nominated by the President and confirmed with the "advice and consent" of the Senate...
Justice
Louis BrandeisLouis D. Brandeis was a United States Supreme Court Justice from 1916 to 1939. He was born in Louisville, Kentucky to Jewish parents who had immigrated from Europe...
from 1935-1936. He also taught at the University of Buffalo Law School.
The Lonely Crowd
Riesman's 1950 book,
The Lonely CrowdThe Lonely Crowd is a 1950 sociological analysis by David Riesman, Nathan Glazer, and Reuel Denney. It is considered -- along with White Collar: The American Middle Classes, written by Riesman's friend and colleague C. Wright Mills -- to be a landmark study of American character.- Description...
, a sociological study of modern conformity, which postulates the existence of the "inner-directed" and "other-directed" personalities. Riesman argues that the character of post WWII American society impels individuals to "other-directedness", the preeminent example being modern suburbia, where individuals seek their neighbors' approval and fear being outcast from their community. This lifestyle has a coercive effect, which compels people to abandon "inner-direction" of their lives, and induces them to take on the goals, ideology, likes, and dislikes of their community. Ironically, this creates a tightly grouped crowd of people that is yet incapable of truly fulfilling each other's desire for companionship. The book is considered a landmark study of American character. Riesman was a major public intellectual as well as a sociologist, representing an early example of what sociologists now call "public sociology."
American Higher Education
In addition to his many other publications, Riesman was also a noted commentator on American higher education, publishing, with his seminal work,
The Academic Revolution co-written with Christopher Jencks. In
The Academic Revolution Riesman sums up his position by stating, "If this book has any single message it is that the academic profession increasingly determines the character of undergraduate education in America." In a painstaking and historically thorough treatment of landmark changes in 20th-century American higher education, Riesman repeatedly highlights the effects of the "logic of the research university", which focuses upon strict disciplinary research. This internal logic both sets the goals of the research university and produces its future professors. Riesman noted this isolated any patterns of resistance that might challenge the university's primary purpose as disciplinary research, dashing their chances of success.