On Civilization, Power, and Knowledge: Selected Writings

by Norbert Elias, Stephen Mennell (Editor), Johan Goudsblom (Editor)

Norbert Elias (1897-1990) is among the great sociologists of the twentieth century. Born in Germany, Elias earned a doctorate in philosophy and then turned to sociology, working with Max Weber's younger brother, Alfred Weber, and with Karl Mannheim. He later fled the Nazi regime in 1935 and spent most of his life in Britain. He is best known for his book, The Civilizing Process, wherein he traces the subtle changes in manners among the European upper classes since the Middle Ages, and shows how those seemingly innocuous changes in etiquette reflected profound transformations of power relations in society. He later applied these insights to a wide range of subjects, from art and culture to the control of violence, the sociology of sports, the development of knowledge and the sciences, and the methodology of sociology.

This volume is a carefully chosen collection of Elias's most important writings and includes many of his most brilliant ideas. The development of Elias's thinking during the course of his long career is traced along with a discussion of how his work relates to other major sociologists and how the various selections are interconnected. The result is a consistent and stimulating look at one of sociology's founding thinkers.

Genres: Philosophy, Sociology, History

312 pages, Paperback

First published February 17, 1998

About the author

Norbert Elias was a German-Jewish sociologist who later became a British citizen, though he is often referred to as a Dutch thinker, and made his home in Amsterdam in his latter years.

Elias's theory focused on the relationship between power, behavior, emotion, and knowledge over time. He significantly shaped what is called process or figurational sociology. Due to historical circumstances, Elias had long remained a marginal author, until being rediscovered by a new generation of scholars in the 1970s, when he eventually became one of the most influential sociologists in the history of the field.

(Some text from Wikipedia licenced under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License)

Reviews

[Matico · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is a typical academic product: The selected, and to some degree digested essays of an intellecual all-star. For me it was a great introduction, especially considering the length of some of his individual works.
Interesting to compare to Foucault and Bourdieu. Probably because Elias was born in 1897, and was therefore a full generation older, there is a psychologism, even a flirtation with social psychology, in his work. In a sense, this brings to light some of what was at stake, but was not made explicit in Foucault.
Elias was a first-class historicist thinker, whose interests ranged from the sociology of sports (and their ancient origins) to the analysis of etiquette. I haven't been able to put the book down for the past three days.