Crowds and Democracy: The Idea and Image of the Masses from Revolution to Fascism

Stefan Jonsson

Published by Columbia University Press 2013

Crowds and Democracy

The Idea and Image of the Masses from Revolution to Fascism

Stefan Jonsson

In the series Columbia Themes in Philosophy, Social Criticism, and the Arts

https://doi.org/10.7312/jons16478

Overview
Contents

About this book

Spanning aesthetics, cultural studies, intellectual history, and political theory, this volume unpacks the significance of the shadow agent known as “the mass” during a critical period in European history.

Author / Editor information

Stefan Jonsson is a writer and critic based in Sweden and professor of ethnic studies at Linköping University. His previous books include A Brief History of the Masses: Three Revolutions and Subject Without Nation: Robert Musil and the History of Modern Identity.

Reviews

Étienne Balibar, author of We, the People of Europe? Reflections on Transnational Citizenship:
Stefan Jonsson's book analyzes in depth, but also with wit and elegance, the centrality of the 'masses' as a problematic category in the troubled trajectories of Germany and Austria in the interwar period. Reading discourses and images that range from sociology to theater and photography, with Simmel and Freud as core theorists of the new regime of the collective passions and expressionism and modernism as extreme forms of its aesthetic representation, Jonsson convincingly argues that what was at stake and made democracy unstable was not only the violence of political movements but also the aporia of the modern individuality. This offers fascinating insights into our own contemporary cultural crisis.

Göran Therborn, University of Cambridge:
A magnificent sociocultural analysis, written with the erudition of the intellectual historian and the vision of a photographer in the captivating prose of the experienced journalist.

Kerstin Barndt, University of Michigan:
In his strikingly choreographed and beautifully written study, Jonsson traverses an extensive archive, delving into novels and artworks, philosophy, historiography, and psychoanalysis. From this remarkable interdisciplinary bricolage emerges a profound set of insights into the shifting notions of the masses during the interwar years.

Geoff Eley, University of Michigan:
In his demonstrable command of the cross-disciplinary fund of available literatures and their respective knowledges, Jonsson's treatments effectively dissolve any meaningful boundary among literary criticism, philosophical explication, and intellectual and cultural history.

Topics

Frontmatter Publicly Available Download PDF	i
Contents Publicly Available Download PDF	vii
Illustrations Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	xi
Preface Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	xv
1. Introducing the Masses Vienna, 15 July 1927 Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	1
2. Authority Versus Anarchy Allegories of the Mass in Sociology and Literature Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	51
3. The Revolving Nature of the Social Primal Hordes and Crowds Without Qualities Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	119
4. Collective Vision A Matrix for New Art and Politics Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	175
5. Coda: Remnants of Weimar Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	247
Notes Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	257
Index Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	297

Language: English
Publisher: Columbia University Press
Audience: Professional and scholarly;
Pages
- Main content: 336
Illustrations
- Illustrations: 33
- Other: 33

eBook

Published: October 1, 2013
ISBN: 9780231535793