How Fromm Became a Forgotten Public Sociologist

Despite the enormous influence Fromm had on the emergence of public sociology his name is not associated with this tradition and Burowoy and others generally don’t mention him. How did this happen? This chapter tells the story of how a debate with Herbert Marcuse in Dissent magazine in the 1950s and the publication of a Marxist self-help-like book The Art of Loving (1956) doomed Fromm’s reputation as a serious sociology for over 50 years, especially in the English-speaking world. We play special attention to the role of Lewis Coser in this story that tells us much about sociological professionalism, the dogmatic nature of Marcuse’s critical theory and how popular writing can damage scholarly reputations.