Figures of Authority: Contributions towards a Cultural History of Governance from 17th to the 20th Century

Peter Becker & Rüdiger von Krosigk (eds.)
(Bilingual publication: German/English)

This book is about authority, more precisely, about figures of authority. The editors have put together an international group of renowned scholars to discuss the emergence of modern notions of authority from different angles. Modern authority is no longer legitimated by status and social position, but rather by institutional affiliation and performance. To research the genealogy and intricacies of this kind of authority, the chapters in this volume cast a closer look at the various institutional actors on whom authority has been bestowed. The authors use a case study approach to look at the instances in which modern authority emerged, was ridiculed, contested, or even failed. Taken together, the individual contributions shed new light on the intricate relationship between the subjects and their organisations; they challenge any Whig historiography of rationalisation and modernisation, and they help us to rethink the inter-relationship between modern and even postmodern institutional arrangements on the one hand, and their subjects on the other.

• Peter Becker/Rüdiger von Krosigk: New Perspectives on the History of Bureaucratic and Scientific Subjects
• Erk Volkmar Heyen: Metaphern für «Ampts-Person» und «Ampts-Tugend» in lutherischen Regentenpredigten des späten 17. Jahrhunderts.
• Achim Landwehr: Welsch und wie er die Welt sah. Ein württembergischer Rentkammerrat und seine Wahrhafftige Reiß-Beschreibung
• Miloš Vec: Weisheit, Klugheit, Recht. Zur Psychogenese und Soziogenese des frühmodernen Staates
• Ben Kafka: Hunting the Plumed Mammal. The History of «Bureaucracy» in France, 1750-1850
• Kirsten Winther Jørgensen: Towards the Angels. British Zoology and the Persona Sapientis, ca. 1660-1800
• Florian Schui: French Figures of Authority in the Prussian Fiscal Administration, c. 1766-1786
• Carolina Castellano: From «Despots of the Tribunals» to «Notable Functionaries». The Judicial Function in the Kingdom of Naples from the Napoleonic Era to the Restoration
• Rui Branco: Fieldwork, Map-making and State Formation. A Case Study in the History of Science and Administration
• Rüdiger von Krosigk: Contentious Authority. Bureaucrats and Bezirksräte in the Grand Duchy of Baden, c. 1831-1884
• Moritz Föllmer: Senior Civil Servants and Nationalism in Germany, 1900-1933
• Magali Gravier: Professional Statute and Identity Type. A Sociological Reading of the Staff Regulation of the European Union's Civil Servants.