<P> In the early 20th century, sociology expanded in the U.S., including developments in both macrosociology, concerned with the evolution of societies, and microsociology, concerned with everyday human social interactions . Based on the pragmatic social psychology of George Herbert Mead (1863--1931), Herbert Blumer (1900--1987) and, later, the Chicago school, sociologists developed symbolic interactionism . In the 1920s, György Lukács released History and Class Consciousness (1923), while a number of works by Durkheim and Weber were published posthumously . In the 1930s, Talcott Parsons (1902--1979) developed action theory, integrating the study of social order with the structural and voluntaristic aspects of macro and micro factors, while placing the discussion within a higher explanatory context of system theory and cybernetics . In Austria and later the U.S., Alfred Schütz (1899--1959) developed social phenomenology, which would later inform social constructionism . During the same period members of the Frankfurt school, such as Theodor W. Adorno (1903--1969) and Max Horkheimer (1895--1973), developed critical theory, integrating the historical materialistic elements of Marxism with the insights of Weber, Freud and Gramsci--in theory, if not always in name--often characterizing capitalist modernity as a move away from the central tenets of enlightenment . </P> <P> During the Interwar period, sociology was undermined by totalitarian governments for reasons of ostensible political control . After the Russian Revolution, sociology was gradually "politicized, Bolshevisized and eventually, Stalinized" until it virtually ceased to exist in the Soviet Union . In China, the discipline was banned with semiotics, comparative linguistics and cybernetics as "Bourgeois pseudoscience" in 1952, not to return until 1979 . During the same period, however, sociology was also undermined by conservative universities in the West . This was due, in part, to perceptions of the subject as possessing an inherent tendency, through its own aims and remit, toward liberal or left wing thought . Given that the subject was founded by structural functionalists; concerned with organic cohesion and social solidarity, this view was somewhat groundless (though it was Parsons who had introduced Durkheim to American audiences, and his interpretation has been criticized for a latent conservatism). </P> <P> In the mid-20th century there was a general--but not universal--trend for U.S. - American sociology to be more scientific in nature, due to the prominence at that time of action theory and other system - theoretical approaches . Robert K. Merton released his Social Theory and Social Structure (1949). By the turn of the 1960s, sociological research was increasingly employed as a tool by governments and businesses worldwide . Sociologists developed new types of quantitative and qualitative research methods . Paul Lazarsfeld founded Columbia University's Bureau of Applied Social Research, where he exerted a tremendous influence over the techniques and the organization of social research . His many contributions to sociological method have earned him the title of the "founder of modern empirical sociology". Lazarsfeld made great strides in statistical survey analysis, panel methods, latent structure analysis, and contextual analysis . He is also considered a co-founder of mathematical sociology . Many of his ideas have been so influential as to now be considered self - evident . </P> <P> In 1959, Erving Goffman published The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life and introduced the theory of dramaturgical analysis which asserts that all individuals aim to create a specific impression of themselves in the minds of other people . C. Wright Mills presented The Sociological Imagination, encouraging humanistic discourse and a rejection of abstracted empiricism and grand theory . Parallel with the rise of various social movements in the 1960s, particularly in Britain, the cultural turn saw a rise in conflict theories emphasizing social struggle, such as neo-Marxism and second - wave feminism . Ralf Dahrendorf and Ralph Miliband presented pioneering theory on class conflict and industrialized nation states . The sociology of religion saw a renaissance in the decade with new debates on secularisation thesis, globalization, and the very definition of religious practise . Theorists such as Lenski and Yinger formulated' functional' definitions of religion; enquiring as to what a religion does rather than what it is in familiar terms . Thus, various new social institutions and movements could be examined for their religious role . Marxist theorists continued to scrutinize consumerism and capitalist ideology in analogous terms . Antonio Gramsci's Selections from the Prison Notebooks (1929--1935) was finally published in English during the early 1970s . </P>

Who is credited with being the world's first professor of sociology