Myron Peretz Glazer

In Memoriam

Mickey Glazer grew up in Brooklyn and graduated from City College. He spent 15 months conducting doctoral research in Chile. That research resulted in his first book, Student Politics in Chile. The Chilean experience, when he was accused of being a C.I.A. agent, led to a long-term concern with the personal, ethical and political aspects of social science field research and, eventually, to another volume, The Research Adventure.

Glazer co-authored Latin American University Students: A Six Nation Study. With Peter I. Rose and Penina M. Glazer, he wrote Sociology: Inquiring Into Society, for college students, and Sociology: Understanding Society for high school students.

He also completed a study of ethics and the role of the "whistleblower." A book based on the research (co-authored by Penina Migdal Glazer), The Whistleblowers: Exposing Corruption in Government and Industry, was published by Basic Books. His research also focused on “citizen crusaders” in the U.S., Israel and Czechoslovakia who resisted the environmental threats to their communities. Many of these “crusaders” were women whose lives were transformed as a result of their involvement with protest efforts. His book The Environmental Crusaders. Confronting Disaster. Mobilizing Community was published in 1998. Articles included “National Security and the Struggle for a Safe Environment” and an essay on research “Ethics,” which appeared in the four-volume Encyclopedia of Cultural Anthropology, and “On the Trail of Courageous Behavior” in Sociological Inquiry. In celebration of Northampton’s 350th anniversary, he completed a book on the history and development of the Jewish community in this city titled The Jews of Paradise.

Glazer, who served as chair of the department from 1974 to 1984 and in the spring 1996 semester, was a member of the graduate faculty at the University of Massachusetts, was co-director of the Project on Women and Social Change, and served as co-director of the Jewish studies department.