Toward a Social History of Knowledge: Collected Essays

One of the foremost historians of intellectual life and education in Germany, Fritz Ringer has brought together in this volume several of his articles, most of which are not easily available are published here in English for the first time. They focus on a whole range of contemporary and historical debates about the relationship between ideas and their context, the role of education and middle-class consciousness, the social role of academics and intellectuals, and competing ideals of learning, science, and history.

Fritz Ringer (1934-2006) taught at Harvard, Indiana, and Boston Universities and was Mellon Professor of History Emeritus at the University of Pittsburgh.