Ernest Gellner: An Intellectual Biography

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Overview

Ernest Gellner was a multilingual polymath who set the agenda in the study of nationalism and the sociology of Islam for an entire generation of academics and students. This definitive biography follows his trajectory from his early years in Prague, Paris and England to international success as a philosopher and public intellectual. Known both for his highly integrated philosophy of modernity and for combining a respect for nationalism with an appreciation for science, Gellner was passionate in his defence of ...
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More About This Book

Overview

Ernest Gellner was a multilingual polymath who set the agenda in the study of nationalism and the sociology of Islam for an entire generation of academics and students. This definitive biography follows his trajectory from his early years in Prague, Paris and England to international success as a philosopher and public intellectual. Known both for his highly integrated philosophy of modernity and for combining a respect for nationalism with an appreciation for science, Gellner was passionate in his defence of reason against every for of relativism.
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Product Details

  • ISBN-13: 9781844677580
  • Publisher: Verso
  • Publication date: 2/1/2012
  • Pages: 416
  • Sales rank: 1,322,169
  • Product dimensions: 6.00 (w) x 9.00 (h) x 1.20 (d)

Meet the Author

John A. Hall is the James McGill Professor of Comparative Historical Sociology at McGill University in Montreal. His books include Ernest Gellner: An Intellectual Biography, Powers and Liberties, Liberalism, Coercion and Consent, International Orders, and (with Charles Lindholm) Is America Breaking Apart? He taught at the Central European University in the early 1990s, when Gellner had returned to Prague, and gained an appreciation at that time of his background in Central Europe.
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Table of Contents

Preface vii

1 Malign Fates 1

2 A New Start 32

3 Moving Into Position 74

4 Concepts and Society 102

5 Gellner's Philosophy 131

6 Components of a Career 168

7 Knowledge and Illusion 207

8 The Shape of History 244

9 The Sociology of Islam 275

10 A General Theory of Nationalism 307

11 Cambridge and Prague 343

Epilogue 377

Index 383

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