ABSTRACT
In recent times, especially under the influence of postmodernism, culture has often been construed as a critique of modernity. This wide-ranging and comprehensive collection of readings shows that such issues have always been at the centre of thought about the relationship between culture and civilization The readings are divided into three sections, linking the civilization debate to political theory, to the cultural debate and to the sociology and anthropology. The substantial extracts included give students a rare chance to engage at length with classic texts to appreciate the nature of the battle between the Enlightenment and its critics which has shaped current thought. Classical Readings on Culture and Civilisation presents essays from Immanuel Kant, Adam Ferguson, Thomas Jefferson, Alexis de Tocqueville, Friedrich von Schiller, Friedrich Nietzche, Georg Simmel, Thomas Mann, Sigmund Freud, Emile Durkheim, Marcel Mauss, Lucien Febvre, Alfred Weber, Robert E. Park and Norbert Elias.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
section I|46 pages
Civilization as Political Transformation
chapter 1|9 pages
Civilization and Enlightenment
chapter 2|13 pages
Nations and Civilizations
chapter 3|12 pages
Civilization, Enlightenment and the New World
part II|65 pages
Cultural Critiques of Civilization
chapter 5|10 pages
Civilization and Romanticism
chapter 6|20 pages
Civilization as Cruelty
part III|92 pages
Sociology and Anthropology: From Civilization to Civilizing Processes