Fate and Utopia in German Sociology, 1870-1923

Honorable Mention, Morris D. Forkosch Prize sponsored by the Journal of the History of Ideas. In this lucid historical introduction to a major tradition in Western thought, Harry Liebersohn discusses five scholars-Ferdinand Tonnies, Ernst Troeltsch, Max Weber, Georg Simmel, and Georg Lukacs-who were responsible for the creation of modern German sociology. This tradition has generally been interpreted as having a tragic, "fatalistic" perspective on modem society; Liebersohn argues that this sense of fate was matched by an underlying utopian hope for an end to fragmentation, rooted for all of his subjects in the Lutheran idea of community. Harry Liebersohn is Assistant Professor and Director of European studies in the Department of History at the Claremont Graduate School.Liebersohn, Harry is the author of 'Fate and Utopia in German Sociology, 1870-1923' with ISBN 9780262620796 and ISBN 0262620790.