Interviews and Autobiographical Reflections (Collected Works of Norbert Elias)

Vol. 17 of the Collected Works can serve as an excellent introduction to Elias's thinking overall. In the last decade of his life, Elias gave many interviews in which he discussed aspects of his work, rebutting many common misunderstandings of his thinking and further developing ideas sketched out in his writings. Besides a selection of these 'academic' interviews (many of them not previously published in English, or not published at all), the book contains his essay in intellectual autobiography and a long interview in which he talks about his own life.

NORBERT ELIAS (1897-1990) was one of the greatest sociologists of the twentieth century. He studied in Breslau and Heidelberg and served as Karl Mannheim's assistant in Frankfurt. In exile after 1933, first in France and then in Britain, he wrote his magnum opus On the Process of Civilisation. His whole oeuvre is now appearing in new scholarly editions in the Collected Works in English. EDITORS Edmund Jephcott has translated a large proportion of Elias's work; Stephen Mennell is Professor Emeritus of Sociology, University College Dublin, and General Editor of the Collected Works; Richard Kilminster is chair of the Editorial Advisory Board; Katie Liston teaches sociology of sport at the University of Ulster.