Karl Mannheim

The historical association between images of the intellectual and those of the stranger is explored in this work using detailed case studies. Is the outsider privileged with a deeper view of social reality? Marx, Durkheim, Sorel, Freyer, and Hendrik de Man are a few of the ambiguous, intellectual strangers examined.

Property and power perform a key role in social and political theories of class inequality and social stratification, however, theorists have yet clearly to define these concepts, their mutual boundaries and scopes of application. This book answers the property/power puzzle by undertaking a broad historical inquiry into its intellectual origins and present-day effects through a series of case studies, including: Marxism vs. anarchism * the fascist assertion of the primacy of the political * social science as power theory * the managerial revolution * the knowledge society and the new intellectual classes

This book addresses, and at the same time reflects, the impact of Max Weber on both the social sciences and on critical theory's critique of the social sciences. Weber's conception of 'vocation' is a guiding thread unifying concerns about the nature, scope and limits of theoretical thinking among social scientists, whether supportive or critical of Weber. Not surprisingly, the source of many of these concerns, whether intended or unintended, biographical or situational, is the ambiguous legacy of Weber himself. Wilson's interrogation of Weber's thought in articles and essays over the past 30 years, supplemented by Kemple's insights, makes a strong case for the claim that we do indeed live in 'the age of Weber'.