Community life and social policy / edited by Elizabeth Wirth Marvick and Albert J.Reiss

It is manifoldly fitting that this posthumous volume of selected papers by Louis Wirth be sponsored by the Department of Sociol ogy and the Social Science Research Committee of the University of Chicago.

Louis Wirth was a member and secretary of the Social Science Research Committee for many years, and played a prominent part in the stimulation, programing, and conduct of social research at the university. His preoccupation with the development of social science research, in general as well as at Chicago, largely accounted for the fact that he was unable to set forth his significant contribu tions to sociology in a more systematic manner before his untimely death. As a distinguished member of the Department of Sociology for almost three decades, Wirth powerfully influenced not only many students but sociology itself as a discipline and as an academic faculty. The papers selected here, relevant to the contemporary world for their insight and valuable research data, merit publication in this more accessible and permanent form.

An expression of appreciation is in order for Elizabeth Wirth Marvick and Albert J. Reiss, Jr., who bear primary responsibility for the selection and editing of the papers.