Participant observer an autobiography in five shorts

Although I have spent no more than fifteen minutes in William Foote Whyte's company, to me - as to thousands who have read his work - "Bill Whyte" is a rare instance of someone who is eminently likable and approachable and, at the same time, an inspiring example.

He has had a full and happy family life and has been an active participant in the communities he has lived in, and yet, on the evidence of this autobiography, he has never been short of passion for his work as a researcher and professor.

He shows how to be an adventurous fieldworker, a serious thinker about the problems of society and of sociology, and a decent person in the swamps of academia - and his work shows what social science looks like when it is done right.

There is no way to summarize Participant Observer, the detailed story of sixty years of research and writing, and I will not try to do so. Most readers will be surprised