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