Should the history of intellectuals also be a history of ideas? François Dosse’s book reorients scholarship in this field by integrating ideas and high culture into the traditionally more sociologically informed history of French intellectuals.
Proving his mastery of Weber’s oeuvre, Scaff’s new book considers the imprint left by various aspects of Weber’s work on the imagination and production of three generations of authors from Europe and North America. He shows that the confrontation between contemporary scholars and Weber’s legacy is a show that will run and run…
Intellectual history and global history have both experienced a welcome revival in recent years, but is there a way to reconcile these two (re)emerging trends? This collection of essays offers a stimulating guide for future research, as well as some salutary warnings about the limitations of a global approach.
Edward Baring’s exciting reinterpretation of Derrida’s early years paints a picture of a postwar French elite that was both scintillating in its intellectual prowess and deeply parochial: it was a world in which Derrida thrived.
The recent biography of Malcolm X provides us with a compelling intellectual history of the charismatic leader. Marable’s critical reevalution of Malcolm’s biography traces his ideas back to a long history of social and religious movements within African American society.
The methodology of the historians of this volume is centred on the polysemic nature of concepts, which are read as “‘vehicles for thought’” studied in their pragmatic and communicative applications in society. Their aim is to remind historians that their toolkits are put together on the basis of choices made at different times in history.
