ABSTRACT
In May 1944 as the fortunes of war teetered back and forth, Lewis Mumford took a very long view of world history, and carried on his four-volume "Renewal of Life" series with The Condition of Man. Mumford sings their praises in the standard work on sociology's history edited by Harry Elmer Barnes in 1948, likely the last time that the two were brought into broad sociological awareness in the United States. In the ASR, Howard Paul Becker gave the book a thundering ovation, taking brief exception only to Mumford's half-baked understanding of Weber's Protestant ethic thesis. Bunzel has little negative to say about the book, though agreeing with Becker that Mumford did not read Weber carefully enough. John Lindberg at Princeton read the book for The Annals, and was not so besotted with Mumford's achievement as was Becker, nor so angry as Faris, yet participates in both sides of the equation.
