SHILS, EDWARD ALBERT

SHILS, EDWARD ALBERT (1910–1995), U.S. sociologist. Shils was born in Springfield, Massachusetts, to Russian Jewish immigrant parents. His father was a cigar maker in Springfield and then in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Shils attended Simon Gratz High School. At 17, he began studying the work of German sociologist Max Weber. Shils went on to study foreign languages at the University of Pennsylvania, graduating with a bachelor's degree in 1931. In the midst of the Great Depression, Shils was a supporter of the New Deal and went to work as a social worker. Fascinated with the makeup of societies, Shils' passion led him to take a position as a research assistant in sociology with the University of Chicago in 1934 and then a teaching position in 1938. Shils' early exposure to and translation of the works of European sociologists, such as Karl Mannheim and Weber, enabled him to serve as a bridge between American and European sociological research. During World War II, Shils served with the Office of Strategic Services, a progenitor to the CIA, interviewing captured German soldiers for the British government. In 1945, he collaborated with scientists from the University of Chicago who worked   on the Manhattan Project to found the publication The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, to alert governments to the dangers posed by nuclear weapons and other weapons of mass destruction. From 1946 to 1950, Shils taught sociology at the London School of Economics; he was named an honorary fellow of the college in 1972. He returned to the University of Chicago, where he became an associate professor in 1947 and then a full professor in the Committee on Social Thought in 1950. In 1949, Harvard sociologist Talcott Parsons invited Shils to co-author a paper, titled Toward a General Theory of Action (1951), which sought to understand the interconnectedness of groups and individuals within society in a universal context. In 1952, Shils served as a lecturer at the University of Manchester. He returned to Chicago in 1953 as a professor both on the Committee on Social Thought and the school's sociology department. Shils spent time traveling through India from 1955 to 1956, and each year through to 1967, studying the country's intelligentsia. The growing conservatism of 1950s America and its attack on intellectuals inspired Shils' public challenge to McCarthyism with the publication of his book Torment of Secrecy (1956). In 1961, he received his master's degree from Cambridge University and published The Intellectual Between Tradition and Modernity: The Indian Situation. In 1962, he founded the quarterly journal Minerva: A Review of Science, Learning and Policy, which explores the link between scientific work at universities and public policy. In addition to his work with the University of Chicago, Shils served as a fellow of King's College, Cambridge from 1961 to 1970; a fellow of Peterhouse, Cambridge, from 1970 to 1978; an honorary professor from 1971 to 1977 at the University of London; and a professor at the University of Leiden from 1976 to 1977. Shils delivered the Jefferson Lectures in 1979 and was awarded the Balzan prize in 1983. He taught his last class in Chicago at the age of 84. He died of cancer in Chicago. -BIBLIOGRAPHY: "Shils, Edward Albert," in: Encyclopedia of World Biography (19982); "Shils, Edward Albert," in: The Scribner Encyclopedia of American Lives, vol 4 (1994–1996); "Prof. Edward Shils, 84, Is Dead; Researcher on Intellectuals' Role," in: The New York Times (Jan. 26, 1995, Section D; Page 21; Column 1); "Obituary: Edward Shils, Committee on Social Thought, Sociology," in; The University of Chicago Chronicle (Feb. 2, 1995), chronicle.uchicago.edu/950202/shils.shtml. (Adam Wills (2nd ed.)