My father, Dennis Smith, who has died aged 78, was an emeritus professor in sociology at Loughborough University. His books include Conflict and Compromise (1982), Norbert Elias and Modern Social Theory (2001), and Globalization: The Hidden Agenda (2006).
His final book, Civilized Rebels (2018), is an analysis of Oscar Wilde, Jean Améry, Nelson Mandela and Aung San Suu Kyi and their time spent behind bars. He framed this against the backdrop of the British empire, Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan, and explored how the dynamics of humiliation enter politics, relationships and war.
Dennis was also the editor of Current Sociology magazine from 2002 to 2010, and spent some time as vice-president of the European Sociological Association.
Born in Nottingham, he was the son of Mary (nee O’Dowd) and Alf Smith, who were both teachers. From Bilborough grammar school he went to Cambridge University to take a degree in modern history. Then an MSc in sociology at the London School of Economics led to a lecturing post at Leicester University in 1969.
Dennis joined Leicester just as the sociology department was emerging as an influential leader in its field. He gained a PhD while working there, and in 1980 went to Aston University, initially as a senior lecturer then as a reader in sociology, before moving in 1999 to Loughborough, where he remained as professor until his retirement in 2014. He was a generous teaching colleague, respected for his intellectual originality and good humour.
In later life Dennis combined his academic interests with his love of family history. He never fully realised his plans to publish on aspects of our story, through which he planned to explore late 19th-century British imperialism. The informal research and writing he did complete on the subject is now one of our treasures.
In 1967 he married Tanya White. She survives him, along with their children, Ed, Sue and me, nine grandchildren, and his younger siblings, Ted and Ann.
