This essay briefly explains the first chapter of CW Mills' book, The Sociological Imagination – The Promise. Included are the different perspectives and opinions I have on this chapter and some topics covered in this chapter. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an Original EssayIn simple terms, “Sociology is the study of human social relationships and institutions,” as stated by the University of North Carolina (UNC), or it is “the study of society, a social science involving the study of the social life of people, groups and societies or the study of our behavior as social beings, covering everything from the analysis of brief contacts between anonymous individuals on the street to the study of global social processes” as stated by the American Sociological Association. The sociological imagination, however, is different. It is a concept used by the American sociologist and author of this book, Charles Wright Mills, to describe the ability to “think of oneself away from the familiar routines of daily life and look at them from a completely new perspective”. Mills also defined the sociological imagination as “the vivid awareness of the relationship between personal experience and society as a whole” in 1959. “Men often feel that their private lives are a series of traps; limited to close-up scenes of work, family, neighbourhood; in another environment they move indirectly and remain spectators". Throughout this chapter, Mills focuses on ordinary men and how their lives are emotional and difficult in different situations and times. “Ordinary men usually don't know what this connection means for the kind of men they are becoming and the kind of history-making in which they might take part; they do not elaborate the quality of mind essential to grasp the interaction between man and society, between biography and history, between self and world”. In our society, men are often described as strong, courageous, serious, stable and intelligent as opposed to how Mills would describe men. In ancient times it was thought that man was the foundation of the family, the one who brings income to the house and the one who provides everything to survive; not incapable, emotional, desperate, or inadequate as Mills believed them to be. “Herbert Spencer, EA Ross, August Comte, Emile Durkheim, Karl Manheim, Karl Marx, Thorstein Veblen, WEH Lecky and Max Weber” are eminent social analysts that Mills mentioned in his book on page 6. “The people who were aware of the promise of their work have constantly asked themselves three types of questions: What is the structure of this particular society as a whole? Where does this society fit into human history, What varieties of men and women prevail today in this society and in this period ?' , as stated extensively on pages 6 to 7. These are questions that are said to be unavoidable for any mind with a sociological imagination political to psychological; it is the ability to range from the most impersonal and remote transformations to the most intimate characteristics of the human self - and to see the relationships between the two". As Mills would define it, “problems occur within the individual's character and within his immediate relationships with others; the issues have to do with matters that transcend the individual's local environments and the scope of his inner life ” In my opinion, problems are fundamentally personal and come from within oneself.