Abstract

In this short comment I try to understand some of the crucial inspirations which in my opinion push American sociologists to create a public sociology. I highlight some themes opened by public sociology' Burawoy proposal that I believe of great significance and which are not bounded to the US sociological field. Finally I try to understand if the public sociology can be a fertile promise for European and Italian sociologists. My principal topic is to suggest that public sociology encourages both scientific autonomy and moral inspiration of the discipline, and in doing so it opens very exciting fields of research and reflection which are since many decades abandoned.