Consciousness and Society: The reorientation of European social thought 1890-1930.

By H. Stuart Hughes

From the Introduction: The present study is an essay in intellectual history.. But to declare that one is writing intellectual his­tory is really to say nothing until one has defined the term. History of this sort obviously deals with the thoughts and emotions of men—with reasoned argu­ment and with passionate outburst alike. The whole range of human expression—as revealed in writing, speech, practice, and tradition—falls within its orbit. Indeed every declaration of mankind more explicit than a bestial cry may in some sense be considered the sub­ject matter of intellectual history.

It might well be argued that this subject matter is not the deepest stuff of history. Below it (to use the work­able but deceptively concrete metaphor of the “high” and “low” when dealing with the human psyche) lies the realm of unorganized sentiments and routine eco­nomic processes. Marx called this realm the “sub­stratum.” For Marx the important thing to know about it was the character of the regime of production that inexorably conditioned human life: for the great social

NY. Vintage Books. Random House. 1958. 448p. THIS BOOK CONTAINS MARK-UP