Morris Janowitz is best remembered perhaps as the preeminent sociologist of the military. But his work went beyond analyses of the institution itself to examine patriotism, nationalism, and the balance between citizens' individual rights and their obligations to the community. In two early works--The Professional Soldier (1946) and Sociology and the Military Establishment (1959)--Janowitz argued that as industrial societies evolve and their institutional structures grow more complex and enveloping, democracy becomes more difficult to maintain.

Janowitz was born in Paterson, New Jersey, in 1919 and received his bachelor's degree in economics from New York University in 1941. For the first two years after graduation, he served as a propaganda analyst for the Department of Justice in Washington before joining the army and serving through the end of World War II. From 1948 to 1951, he served as an assistant professor of sociology at the University of Chicago, where he also earned his...