SOURCE: An introduction to Robert E. Park: On Social Control and Collective Behavior, edited by Ralph H. Turner, The University of Chicago Press, 1967, pp. ix-xlvi.

In the following essay, Turner presents an overview of Park's approach to sociology.

Probably no other man has so deeply influenced the direction taken by American empirical sociology as Robert Ezra Park. His students, inspired by his teaching and impressed with the serious task of finding out what actually went on about them, carried out much of the early empirical research in sociology and established a pattern for the work of others. Perhaps it is because of Park's intense personal impact on his students that rather less attention has been devoted to the system of sociology that is conveyed in his own writings. In this brief essay we hope to recall attention to some of Park's own major ideas, selecting especially those which...