Lecture Notes What is theory? In the world right now there are thousands of students taking classes that are about only theory, smart people are writing books about theory. Some people spend their careers studying only theory. So we will have to be brief here, because this is an introductory course. Sociological theory is the ‘queen of sociology,’ as philosophy has been called the queen of the sciences. Sociological theory involves the analysis, critique, and development of the ways in which we think about and discuss social reality. The American sociologist C. Wright Mills argued, in “The Sociological Imagination,” that the facts of contemporary history are also facts about the success and the failure of individual men and women. When a society is industrialized, a peasant becomes a worker; a feudal lord is liquidated or becomes a businessman. When classes rise or fall, a person is employed or unemployed; when the rate of investment goes up o