Introduction

This introduction presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book explains more "sociological," as it would say, than this: everyone was aware that structural fissures in the Roman Republic had provided Caesar, and precursors like Marius and the Gracchi brothers, with their opportunities. It provides the period from around 1850 to 1871, the period of Napoleon III's hegemony in France, when the term Caesarism circulated effortlessly in the linguistic currency of educated people. The book examines the end of the First World War. Since twentieth-century usages aim to furnish a working concept of Caesarism for political analysis and sociology. Bestriding the Caesarism debate like a colossus stands the imposing figure of Max Weber. Refracted through multiple prisms, and carried through numerous mediations, Max Weber's vision has become part of the common sense of modern "social science.".