The History of Political and Social Concepts : A Critical Introduction.
- 1st ed.
- 1 online resource (215 pages)
Intro -- Contents -- Introduction -- 1. Charting the History of Political and Social Concepts -- 2. The Geschichtliche Grundbegriffe: Relating Political and Social Concepts to Structural Change -- 3. The History of the Concept of Herrschaft in the Geschichtliche Grundbegriffe -- 4. The Place of Concepts in the History of Mentalités: The Handbuch of French Political and Social Concepts -- 5. Innovation and Critique in the Handbuch -- 6. Pocock, Skinner, and Begriffsgeschichte -- 7. "By the Sufferance of Wise Men": A Call for a History of Political and Social Concepts in English -- Appendix A: Concepts Treated in the Geschichtliche Grundbegriffe -- Appendix B: Concepts Treated in the Handbuch -- Notes -- Index -- A -- B -- C -- D -- E -- F -- G -- H -- I -- J -- K -- L -- M -- N -- O -- P -- Q -- R -- S -- T -- U -- V -- W -- Z.
Since the 1960s, German scholars have developed distinctive methods for writing the history of political, social, and philosophical concepts. This work is a critical introduction to this emerging genre: the history of political and social concepts, or Begriffsgeschichte. Systematically surveying political, social, and philosophical discourses and their contexts, historians of concepts track linguistically how the advent, mentalities, and effects of modernity have been conceptualized in contested forms. After assessing the programs and achievements of this genre, and analyzing extended examples of its use, the author argues the need for an analogous project to chart the careers of concepts central to the political and social vocabularies of English-speaking societies.