William R. Jr. Catton

Born in 1926, William R. Catton, Jr. is Professor Emeritus of Sociology at Washington State University where he participated in an interdepartmental Environmental Science Program. He has taught human ecology at WSU and elsewhere. He had taught various courses in sociology at Reed College, University of North Carolina, Oberlin College, University of Alberta (in Canada), University of Canterbury (in New Zealand), and University of Wyoming. In addition, he has given invited lectures at several universities in Europe, Australia and New Zealand.

Immediately after high school, Catton studied chemistry at Central Michigan College before serving aboard a U.S. Navy aircraft carrier during the Second World War, and was wounded when his ship was disabled by a Kamikase attack. After the war he received his bachelor's degree in history in 1950 from Oberlin College. He is married to an Oberlin classmate. He studied creative writing at the University of New Hampshire, and earned his M.A. and Ph.D. in sociology from the University of Washington.

He was co-author of an introductory sociology textbook, and author of From Animistic to Naturalistic Sociology, published in 1966. It was a sociological research interest in wildland recreation patterns that led to his later study of ecological concepts and principles.

He was elected Vice President of the Sociological Association of Australia and New Zealand, and president of the Pacific Sociological Association. The PSA gave him its 1985 Distinguished Scholarship Award for articles in its journal expanding on themes from his 1980 book, Overshoot: The Ecological Basis of Revolutionary Change. His other publications include more than a hundred journal articles (including most recently "Understanding Humanity's Damaged Future," Sociological Inquiry, vol. 79, November 2009: 509-522) and various contributed book chapters, plus several dozen book reviews.

Since retiring from WSU he has continued writing on ecological issues and has been studying the societal functions and dysfunctions of modern division of labor, leading to his latest book: Bottleneck: Humanity's Impending Impasse, published in 2009.