Book excerpt: While it documents a remarkable career, Participant Observer is also a personal chronicle in which William Foote Whyte reflects on his childhood, his education, his courageous struggles with polio and with the crises of family and academic life. Beginning with the study of gangs in Boston's North End recorded in Street Corner Society, Whyte listened to what working people had to say, becoming a powerful voice for worker participation and workplace democracy. His career is a model for the social sciences, and his story should be read by any serious student of them.