Authority : a sociological history / Frank Furedi.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Furedi, Frank, 1947-

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Authority--Social aspects--History.

Authority.

Authoritarianism.

Authority--Social aspects.

History.

Physical Description:

viii, 446 pages ; 24 cm

Place of Publication:

Cambridge : Cambridge University Press, 2013.

Summary:

Concern with authority is as old as human history itself. Eve's sin was to challenge the authority of God by disobeying his rule. Frank Furedi explores how authority was contested in ancient Greece and given a powerful meaning in Imperial Rome. Debates on religious and secular authority dominated Europe through the Middle Ages and the Reformation. The modern world attempted to develop new foundations for authority - democratic consent, public opinion, science - yet Furedi shows that this problem has remained unresolved, arguing that today the authority of authority is questioned. This historical sociology of authority seeks to explain how the contemporary problems of mistrust and the loss of legitimacy of many institutions are informed by the previous attempts to solve the problem of authority. It argues that the key pioneers of the social sciences (Marx, Durkheim, Simmel, Tonnies and especially Weber) regarded this question as one of the principal challenges facing society. Book jacket.

Contents:

Introduction: Always in question

Thersites and the personification of anti-authority

Socrates and the quest for authority

Rome and the founding of authority

Augustus : a role model for authority through the ages

Medieval authority and the investiture contest

Medieval claim-making and the sociology of tradition

Reformation and the emergence of the problem of order

Hobbes and the problem of order

The rationalisation of authority

The limits of the authority of the rational

Taming public opinion and the quest for authority

Nineteenth century authority on the defensive

Authority transformed into sociology's cause

The rise of negative theories of authority

By-passing authority through the rationalisation of persuasion

In the shadow of authoritarianism

Conclusion: Final thoughts.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN:

9781107007284

1107007283

9780521189286

0521189284

OCLC:

841558894