Norbert Elias has been described as a great sociologist and over recent years there has been a steady upsurge
of interest in his work. Yet despite the fact that he was active for over sixty years from the 1920s it was only
in the 1980s that English translations of his works became widely available and the importance of his contribution
to the sociological endeavour was fully recognised in the English-speaking world. This book provides a comprehensive
and accessible introduction to the key aspects of Elias's work and then applies an Eliasian approach to key topics
in contemporary sociology such as race, class, gender, religion, epistemology and nationalism. The editors have
brought together a distinguished group of international sociologists and this book will not only change the course
of Elias studies but be a valuable resource for both students and scholars alike.
Table of Contents
1 Towards a 'central theory' : the scope and relevance of the sociology of Norbert Elias
2 From distance to detachment : knowledge and self-knowledge in Elias's theory of involvement and detachment
3 Ecology, 'human nature' and civilizing processes : biology and sociology in the work of Norbert Elias
4 Between the real and the reified : Elias on time
5 Aspects of the figurational dynamics of racial stratification : a conceptual discussion and developmental analysis
of black-white relations in the United States
6 Decivilizing and demonizing : the remaking of the black American ghetto
7 Elias on class and stratification
8 Elias on gender relations : the changing balance of power between the sexes
9 Not so exceptional? : state-formation processes in America
10 Armed peace : on the pacifying condition for the 'cooperative of states'
11 Changing regimes of manners and emotions : from disciplining to informalizing
12 Elias and modern penal development
13 Elias, Freud and Goffman : shame as the master emotion
14 Weber and Elias on religion and violence : warrior charisma and the civilizing process
15 Christian religion and the European civilizing process : the views of Norbert Elias and Max Weber compared in
the context of the Augustinian and Lucretian traditions
