Michael Mann - Tha Sources of Social Power
Canadian Journal of Sociology Online November-December 2006
John A. Hall and Ralph Schroeder, eds.
An Anatomy of Power: The Social Theory of Michael Mann.
Cambridge University Press, 2006, 409 pp.
$US 34.99 paper (0-521-61518-6), $US 80.00 hardcover (0-521-85000-2)
In an endnote buried deep in his own contribution to this volume editor John Hall questions: “[I]s it the case that Mann has been so overwhelmed by historical material that he has in fact ceased to be a sociological theorist, becoming an analytic historian instead?” The best reply, it would seem, comes in the form of this collection of high-powered and sustained reflections on the social theory of
Michael Mann. Certainly before Hall and Ralph Schroeder pulled these fifteen chapters from leading sociologists, historians, and political scientists, the question was far from far-fetched. Adding the theory sections of three of the five books mentioned in this collection (The Sources of Social Power
Volumes I and II (1983 and 1993) and The Dark Side of Democracy (2005)) Mann had devoted no more than 153 pages of “social theory” to a total of 1,734 pages of detailed historical analyses.
Clearly Hall and Schroeder have rendered those who take seriously the study of historical sociology and social theory – in the best tradition of Weber and Marx – an invaluable service.
This review will attempt to serve a single purpose while largely disregarding the editors’ separation of chapters into thematic sections; namely, Mann’s theory and method, his analysis of power, his explanation for the rise of the West and his examination of modernity. The editors have done well to collate in this way, although in practice several of the contributors address more than one of these issues in their chapter. Instead I will distill the fundamental challenges authors pose to Mann’s work around a number of themes. Mann’s response, which comes at the end of the volume, will have to wait purchase of the book. Here I
John A. Hall and Ralph Schroeder, eds.
An Anatomy of Power: The Social Theory of Michael Mann.
Cambridge University Press, 2006, 409 pp.
$US 34.99 paper (0-521-61518-6), $US 80.00 hardcover (0-521-85000-2)
In an endnote buried deep in his own contribution to this volume editor John Hall questions: “[I]s it the case that Mann has been so overwhelmed by historical material that he has in fact ceased to be a sociological theorist, becoming an analytic historian instead?” The best reply, it would seem, comes in the form of this collection of high-powered and sustained reflections on the social theory of
Michael Mann. Certainly before Hall and Ralph Schroeder pulled these fifteen chapters from leading sociologists, historians, and political scientists, the question was far from far-fetched. Adding the theory sections of three of the five books mentioned in this collection (The Sources of Social Power
Volumes I and II (1983 and 1993) and The Dark Side of Democracy (2005)) Mann had devoted no more than 153 pages of “social theory” to a total of 1,734 pages of detailed historical analyses.
Clearly Hall and Schroeder have rendered those who take seriously the study of historical sociology and social theory – in the best tradition of Weber and Marx – an invaluable service.
This review will attempt to serve a single purpose while largely disregarding the editors’ separation of chapters into thematic sections; namely, Mann’s theory and method, his analysis of power, his explanation for the rise of the West and his examination of modernity. The editors have done well to collate in this way, although in practice several of the contributors address more than one of these issues in their chapter. Instead I will distill the fundamental challenges authors pose to Mann’s work around a number of themes. Mann’s response, which comes at the end of the volume, will have to wait purchase of the book. Here I