Long known as a pioneer in the sociological study of communications and of the middle class, Hans Speier is being rediscovered by younger scholars as a seminal member of the second generation of sociologists that followed the classic thinkers of the turn of the century. Dr Speier introduces this collection of his most significant essays with an autobiographical chapter discussing the evolution of his work. The essays are grouped in five categories: social theory, war and militarism, public opinion and propaganda, the history of literature, and `the present and the future'. They include writings on honour and social structure, hero worship, militarism in the eighteenth century, psychological warfare, and Shakespeare's The Tempest, among others. Sophisticated and eloquent, these essays will appeal to scholars in numerous fields as those interested in the development of sociological thought in the twentieth century.