[1] He is the author of Freak Culture: Life Style and Politics (1972),[2] and Beyond Revolution: A New Theory of Social Movements (1986).
He attended The Bronx High School of Science and later received his bachelor's degree in Sociology from Cornell University.
[3] He later took coursework at Syracuse University in the field of data processing, and worked in database management and programming for government and academic researchers.
[3] Foss met fellow sociologist Ralph W. Larkin when they were both teaching Sociology at Rutgers University.
[7][8][9][10] The thrust of his research and writing in the last decades of his life was a synthesis reflecting the wider scope of social history rather than only the sociological.