Involvement and Detachment

This is the eighth volume of an 18-volume series collecting the works of Norbert Elias (1897-1990), the German sociologist. The volume reproduces in full Involvement and Detachment: Contributions to the Sociology of Knowledge (a translation of 1983's Engagement und Distanzierung: Arbeiten zur Wissenssoziologie I), which collected essays written between the 1950s and the 1980s on Elias's theory of the growth of knowledge and the sciences over the course of the development of human society: Problems of involvement and detachment, The fishermen in the maelstrom, and Reflections on the great evolution: two fragments. This volume also includes Elias's 1987 introduction to the English-language edition. Information on textual variants is provided. Annotation c2008 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)