Sombart Research Articles

Werner Sombart (1863–1941), Social scientist

Journal of the History of the Behavioral SciencesVolume 34, Issue 2 p. 192-194 Book Review Werner Sombart (1863–1941), Social scientist Colin Loader, Corresponding Author Colin Loader University of Nevada, Las Vegas, NV 89154-5020University of Nevada, Las Vegas, NV 89154-5020Search for more papers by this author Colin Loader, Corresponding Author Colin Loader University of Nevada, Las Vegas, NV 89154-5020University of Nevada, Las Vegas, NV 89154-5020Search for more papers by this author First published: 07 December 1998 https://doi.org/10.1002/(SICI)1520-6696(199821)34:2<192::AID-JHBS14>3.0.CO;2-PAboutPDF ToolsRequest permissionExport citationAdd to favoritesTrack citation ShareShare Give accessShare full text accessShare full-text accessPlease review our Terms and Conditions of Use and check box below to share full-text version of article.I have read and accept the Wiley Online Library Terms and Conditions of UseShareable LinkUse the link below to share a full-text version of this article with your friends and colleagues. Learn more.Copy URL Volume34, Issue2Spring 1998Pages 192-194 RelatedInformation

Recent Trends in Fashion Scholarship

he timing of this theme issue should not imply that German studies has only T recently taken up the question of fashion and its relation to literary culture. Although dress culture has recently risen to prominence as a subject worthy of critical interpretation-the appearance of the journal Fashion Theory is but one of many current forays into the f ie ldaerman scholarship had already begun in the 1980s to rediscover the sociological tradition that treated fashion’s mutability as a characteristic symptom of modernity. The centrality of fashion in commodity culture had always been acknowledged by Theodor Adorno and Marxists such as F. W. Haug. However, the possibility of a critical theory of fashion that did not treat consumer style as a mere epiphenomenon was not realized until Suhrkamp published Walter Benjamin’s unfinished Passagen Werk in 1982, with its prominent konvolut on “Mode.” Benjamin’s allegorical conception of fashion had been alluded to in previously published essays, but only with the appearance of the Passagen Werk did Frankfurt School readers find an account that did not treat fashion as a mere ideological ruse. Indeed Benjamin ascribes an almost prophetic aspect to its cyclical changes. He captured, and simultaneously overstated, fashion’s fascination for cultural historians when he wrote, “Jede Saison bringt in ihren neuesten Kreationen irgendwelche geheimen Flaggensignale der kommenden Dinge. Wer sie zu lesen verstiinde, der wiiRte im voraus nicht nur um neue Strommungen der Kunst, sondern um neue Gesetzbucher, Kriege und Revolutionen.”’ Benjamin’s collected notes were in large part built on older sociological accounts of fashion. With the publication of Silvia Bovenschen’s Die Listen der Moden (Suhrkamp, 1986) this somewhat forgotten tradition was again made available in German. Bovenschen’s anthology was divided into two sections: The first provided the primary theoretical texts on fashion--essays by Eduard Fuchs, Theodor Vischer, Werner Sombart, Thorstein Veblen, and Georg Simmel, as well as more recent selections by Richard Sennett and Roland Barthes; the second half provided commentaries built upon the first. The end result of this division was to give the impression that German academic commentary on fashion was most pen-

Werner Sombart 1863-1941. Eine Biographie

Journal Article Werner Sombart 1863-1941. Eine Biographie Get access Eckhardt Fuchs Eckhardt Fuchs Washington, D. C.By Friedrich Lenger. Munich: C. H. Beck. 1994. 570 pp. DM 98. Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar German History, Volume 14, Issue 3, July 1996, Pages 399–400, https://doi.org/10.1093/gh/14.3.399 Published: 01 July 1996

Weber's Lacuna: Medieval Religion and the Roots of Rationalization

Weber’s Lacuna: Medieval Religion and the Roots of Rationalization Lutz Kaelber Few works in twentieth-century social thought have received as much attention as Max Weber’s The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism, which appeared in its original form in 1904–5. 1 Weberian scholars and critics have focused on the links between religion and the modern economy, but have overlooked an important component of Weber’s study—medieval religion. Analyzing the cultural significance of modern ascetic rationalism, Weber initially wanted to extend the PE stepping back in time and study the historical development of methodical rational ways of life preceding the Reformation. Between publication of the PE essays and his death in 1920, Weber then specified his research agenda and elaborated on his earlier views. First these specifications and elaborations were made as a response to a series of writings by Ernst Troeltsch, particularly The Social Teachings of the Christian Churches and Groups, 2 and later while preparing a study on The Christianity of the Occident as part of his Collected Essays in the Sociology of Religion. The purpose of this essay is to provide an analysis of Weber’s views on medieval religion as they evolved between 1904–5 and 1920, and to [End Page 465] show how Weber linked his explorations of medieval religion to his larger intellectual agenda, appropriating and transcending ideas current in contemporary historical and religious scholarship. Furthermore, I hope to demonstrate that the conclusions of the few existing studies of Weber’s views on this topic have to be revised. His remarks on medieval religion were not confined to the conceptualization of structural transformations in the Middle Ages; 3 nor did they contain the notion of medieval Christianity as a step backward in the course of Western rationalization. 4 On the contrary, Weber was interested in religious contributions and impediments to a rationalization of conduct in different groups in the Middle Ages, and while he saw largely impediments in orthodox lay religion, he presumed the existence of precursors to Calvinist ascetic rationalism in fringe and heterodox religious movements. In the development of his thought Weber’s interest in this topic runs through three phases: first, the years 1904–5, when the PE was published, containing the cornerstones of a sociological treatment of medieval religion; second, the years between 1906 and 1910, in which Ernst Troeltsch supplemented Weber’s treatment and elicited his response; and third, the years between 1910 and 1920, when Weber began to put medieval Christianity in the context of a comparative typology and historical analysis of religious rationalizations in the major world religions. The Protestant Ethic of 1904–5 5 In the PE Weber set himself the task of analyzing the contribution of religious factors in the early-modern period to the emergence of one constitutive component of modern culture, that is, methodical behavior based on the idea of a calling. Yet Weber’s intellectual interests went beyond this topic and era. The overarching issue was the cultural significance of Protestantism’s “ascetic rationalism,” which was to be studied for both later and earlier periods. In delineating the meaning of this concept, Weber was careful to point out that ascetic rationalism of a religious providence was just one among many empirical forms the generic concept of rationalism could designate: [End Page 466] “One can very well ‘rationalize’ life according to very different ultimate points of view and in different directions; ‘rationalism’ is a historical concept that encompasses a world of differences.” 6 It was therefore necessary to provide a specification of the term, for which Weber took a cue from the economist Werner Sombart. In his Modern Capitalism (1902) Sombart had characterized the distinguishing feature of the modern capitalist economy as thorough “calculability” (Rechenhaftigkeit). Calculability denotes the precise, encompassing structuring of means for the achievement of capitalist profit. Weber found Sombart’s characterization highly accurate, 7 but also differed from him in two important aspects. First, he viewed calculability as a manifestation of a larger underlying process—ascetic rationalism. For Weber ascetic rationalism manifested itself in the thorough calculability of all social spheres, and it was not merely an institutional characteristic, as Sombart had defined it. Ascetic...

Unionism in the Twentieth-Century United States: A Re-examination

Sidney Fine. "Without Blare of Trumpets:" Walter Drew, the National Erec- tors' Association, and the Open Shop Movement, 1903-57. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1995. Pp. x +384. Robert H. Zieger. The CIO 1935-1955. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1995. Pp. xii + 491. Colin Gordon. New Deals: Business, Labor, and Politics in America, 1920- 1935. Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press, 1994. Pp. xii + 329. Conflict between workers and their employers over distribution of the fruits of production in democratic nations has taken place in two spheres: the electoral-representative and the labour market. The absence in the United States of a successful political party committed to and dependent for its support on the working class has placed a heavier burden upon unions as the protector of worker interests than in many industrialized countries. Much ink has been spilled to explain the first phenomenon. The preoccupation with answering Werner Sombart's query about why there was no socialism in the United States has tended to divert attention from the weakness of unionism in this country. That weakness was temporarily disguised by the surge in union membership from the 1930s until the latter 1950s. Union decline since, however, has sparked new interest in the sources of labour organizational failure.

The Agony and Romance of the American Left

AT THE END OF THE 1940s, Daniel Bell sat down to write first scholarly history of Marxian Left in United States. Socialism was an unbounded dream, began young sociologist and labor editor of Fortune, evoking millenarian faith that, over previous century, had moved countless people on both sides of Atlantic to imagine a future of social equality amid economic abundance and to dedicate their lives to realizing it.' Then he turned critical. In United States, Marxists had utterly failed to build a large or stable movement. Bell summarized what were, at time, most popular reasons for that failure-from Werner Sombart's evocation, in 1906, of reefs of roast beef and apple pie supposedly available to American workers to Selig Perlman's stress, in a 1928 work, on free gift of ballot to men without property (whose European counterparts had won suffrage only after threatening or waging revolution).2 But none of these provided a sufficient explanation for what Bell called the melancholy question. There was, after all, a good deal of industrial strife in American past and several deep depressions-all of which, by Marxist lights, should have awakened class consciousness of wage-earning masses. To understand why socialist movement had been unable to adapt to such intermittent flashes of opportunity, one had to appreciate crippling effect of Left's own world view. Wrote Bell: The socialist movement, by its very statement of goal and in its rejection of capitalist order as a whole, could not relate itself to specific problems of social action in here-and-now, give-and-take political world. It was trapped by unhappy problem of living 'in

Thorstein Veblen's Analysis of German Intellectualism: Institutionalism as a Forecasting Method

Abstract Veblen's critique of German intellectuals during World War I ran parallel to his overall critique of Imperial Germany. Elements from the modern West (liberal ideas or technology) were seen as grafted onto the German authoritarian structure in such a way as to temporarily strengthen that structure. Analysis of wartime writings by German academics verifies Veblen's assertions. Those writings presented the authoritarian state as a better protector of the interests of all the German people than was the type of constitutional state found in Britain. The shrill wartime writings of Werner Sombart wete of a different tone than those of the moderates, verifying Veblen's concerns over the explosiveness of the mixture of the modern and authoritarian, as well as its fascistic potential. Veblen's institutional forecastting can, with reservations, be rewarding in analyzing similar atavistic continuities today.

Long-term economic perspectives compared: Joseph Schumpeter and Werner Sombart

The article compares Joseph Schumpeter's well-known perspectives of long term economic development with those put forward in the 1920's by the German economist Werner Sombart who followed an approach of ‘theoretical historicism’. There was general agreement between Schumpeter and Sombart that capitalism as an economic system was on the decline. Whereas according to Sombart this was attributable to a tendancy towards stagnation; in Schumpeter's view capitalism was doomed due to its success, not for its failure. The strongest parallels are to be found with respect to forces driving the transformation process, at the end of which Schumpeter expected a socialist system whereas Sombart envisioned some kind of mixed economy. The article also discusses the relevance of differences of approaches and of value judgments for the results of both authors' investigations.

On Sombart

Ladies and Gentlemen, Honored colleagues! May I first introduce myself as a now retired social scientist, who, due to an to an ex-vitation by the Nazis and unsolicited in-vitations by institutions of higher learning in this country, has spent more than half a century in the United States. Much of that time I devoted to what may be called bridge-building between American and German Catholic social thought and movements. Werner Sombart was one of my very first contacts with sociology and economics alongside with the teachings of Heinrich Pesch, S.J., known among historians of comparative economic systems for his five-volume Lehrbuch der Nationalokonomie (Textbook of Economics) and his socio-economic system of solidarism. I will, of course, today restrict myself to Werner Sombart, though my personal contacts with him did not have quite the scope of those I had with Pesch, whose work Sombart in his Die drei Nationalokonomien (Munich 1950, p. 36) characterized as bedeutend (i.e., significant). I began my economic studies in the Fall of 1919 at the Handelshochschule of Berlin, i.e. the Graduate School of Business Administration, established in 1906 by the Elders of the Merchants of Greater Berlin. Sombart, after sixteen years at the University of Breslau, accepted a call from the HHB (Handelshochschule Berlin), joining its faculty in the very first year of its foundation. When in 1919, the year of my matriculation, I caught sight of Sombart, and it is true, for the first time, he had already been teaching there for over a decade. It seems, however, that the nearby Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universitat of Berlin (now the Humboldt University) was in no hurry to call Sombart to an academic chair, probably because of his supposedly pink past. In view of the fact that Sombart had studied at the University of Berlin under such famous scholars as Adolph Wagner and Gustav Schmoller who had been known as Socialists of the Chair or Professorial Socialists, it is hard to understand why the school of philosophy, which included the department of political economy did not even rush to offer Sombart a chair. If there was at that time a mis-interpretation of Sombart's socio-economic philosophy it may have been due to Sombart's disclaim of fellowship to any definite ideology, much less of some permanent discipleship. Be that as it may, I for one profited from this situation though I was still too much of an academic greenhorn to be aware of this advantage. If you keep in mind that all this was going on when I had barely left the stage of a teenager, you will understand that I am no longer sure of how I (in 1991 91 years of age) handled those early experiences. I must have read Werner Sombart's Der Bourgeois (Munich 1913) and read it with growing excitement, particularly the two introductory chapters and those that deal with the spiritual sources of the capitalist frame of mind. I was amazed for sure that Sombart, a non-Catholic, had such an astonishingly perfect knowledge of classical scholastic doctrine, especially, however, of the moral philosophy of Thomas Aquinas. To this day, however, I am dumbfounded by the fact that Sombart's dictum according to which the canonical prohibition of usury gave a mighty impetus to the expansion of the capitalist spirit, did not immensely stir the academic community, especially the sociologists. Likewise, it should have intrigued the lettered people. Sombart's thesis, it is to be admitted, does seem to be paradoxical. Members of the propertied classes at that time came to the conclusion that investment which was considered morally unobjectionable is easier on the conscience, they were likely to prefer the outlay of capital for profit to lending money at interest. Thus it is actually not so paradoxical as it appears to be at first sight, just as a Graduate School of Business Administration is not at all so removed from the idea of ethical investment banking. This seemed to me at least as intelligible as Max Weber's theory of the role of calvinism in the origin and development of capitalism. …

Squaring Accounts: Commercial Bookkeeping Methods and Capitalist Rationalism in Late Qing and Republican China

Accounting has been defined as “the art of classifying, recording, and reporting significant financial events to facilitate effective economic activity” (Davidson 1968:14). The description, terse as it is, evokes the image of accounting's role as overseer in the global formation of mercantile and industrial capitalism. According to the historical sociologists Werner Sombart and Max Weber, methodical accounting methods were basic attributes of the development of modern capitalism in the West, and in the West alone. Yet, as Gary Hamilton observes, “uniqueness is a comparative claim, as well as a presumption underlying much historical research” (1985:66–67). In other words, claims of singularity should be redocumented by sound historical comparisons, rather than continually inferred on the basis of conventional wisdom.

Werner Sombart (1863 - 1941) Capitalism - Socialism - His Life, Works and Influence Since Fifty Years

Article Werner Sombart (1863 - 1941) Capitalism - Socialism - His Life, Works and Influence Since Fifty Years was published on June 1, 1992 in the journal Jahrbuch für Wirtschaftsgeschichte / Economic History Yearbook (volume 33, issue 1).

Thorstein Veblen, Werner Sombart and The Periodization of History

(1991). Thorstein Veblen, Werner Sombart and The Periodization of History. Journal of Economic Issues: Vol. 25, No. 2, pp. 421-429.

Worker Militancy and Its Consequences: Political Responses to Labor Unrest in the United States, 1877–1914

Werner Sombart asks two questions in Why is there no Socialism in the United States?: Why the United States, home of the world's premier capitalist economy, lacks a strong socialist movement, and why American democracy has not led to significant reforms in the interests of the working class. To Sombart, these are the same question because he assumes that without popular sanction democratically elected officials would never act as openly as America's have in support of capitalist expansion and against labor. Assuming this democracy, he can then draw conclusions about popular attitudes from political outcomes, causally attributing procapitalist state policy to popular procapitalist attitudes. Indeed, the juxtaposition of democracy and state policy leads to his central conclusion that “emotionally the American worker has a share in capitalism …he loves it.”

The Orthodox Kibbutzim and Economic Success

The 1980s economic crisis within the Israeli kibbutz movement has spotlighted the outstanding economic performance of one element therein: the Religious Kibbutz Federation (RKF). This note compares the performance of the RKF with that of the secular kibbutzim between 1958 and 1982. The findings substantiate the theoretical perspectives of Max Weber and Werner Sombart regarding Judaism and economic success.

Reading and writing with nature

In The Structures of Everyday Life' Fernand Braudel dismisses out of hand Werner Sombart's suggestion2 that there is a close connection between the ravenous patterns of consumption in early moder court life and the growth of capitalist production. The idea that businesses and trade might have been spawned to fill this demand is not, to Braudel's mind, worthy of serious consideration. Court sumptuousness is a cultural aberration to Braudel, not an essential part of an emerging capitalist economy. There is a tone of deep contempt in this dismissal, presumably because Sombart's approach would lead researchers to sanctify outrageous spending and to study the well-known stock players of elite history, not the equally fascinating but more obscure characters now the major focus of historical research. Sombart violates current norms by thinking and writing about kings and queens. Worse than that, Sombart's approach takes the development of capitalism out of the hands of ordinary entrepreneurs, and puts it squarely into the laps of aristocrats who did little business yet reaped rewards from the economic efforts of others. It seems an insult to those living more modest lives who helped to transform European life through the development of new business practices and a new economic mentality.

Division and Difference in the "Discipline" of Economics

Previous articleNext article No Access1933-1934: Thoughts on National SocialismDivision and Difference in the "Discipline" of EconomicsJack Amariglio, Stephen Resnick, and Richard WolffJack Amariglio Search for more articles by this author , Stephen Resnick Search for more articles by this author , and Richard Wolff Search for more articles by this author PDFPDF PLUS Add to favoritesDownload CitationTrack CitationsPermissionsReprints Share onFacebookTwitterLinkedInRedditEmail SectionsMoreDetailsFiguresReferencesCited by Critical Inquiry Volume 17, Number 1Autumn, 1990 Article DOIhttps://doi.org/10.1086/448576 Views: 27Total views on this site Citations: 19Citations are reported from Crossref Copyright 1990 The University of ChicagoPDF download Crossref reports the following articles citing this article:Kavous Ardalan Pluralist Economics: A Multi-paradigmatic Look, (Dec 2017): 171–227.https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-72071-5_12Sakari Hänninen Documentation, assessment and social control: ASI and the shaping of the discourse on addiction, Journal of Substance Use 9, no.3-43-4 (Jul 2009): 205–211.https://doi.org/10.1080/14659890410001697451Fikret Adaman, Yahya M. Madra Theorizing the "Third Sphere": A Critique of the Persistence of the "Economistic Fallacy", Journal of Economic Issues 36, no.44 (Jan 2016): 1045–1078.https://doi.org/10.1080/00213624.2002.11506535Mark Tomass Incommensurability of Economic Paradigms: A case study of the monetary theories of Mises and Marx, Review of Political Economy 13, no.22 (Aug 2010): 221–243.https://doi.org/10.1080/09538250120036655Robert F. Garnett Postmodernism and Theories of Value: New Grounds for Institutionalist/Marxist Dialogue?, Journal of Economic Issues 33, no.44 (Jan 2016): 817–834.https://doi.org/10.1080/00213624.1999.11506215Jonathan Mote (Dis)Trusting the Tale, (Dec 2009).https://doi.org/10.4324/9780203435984.ch9 (DIS)TRUSTING THE TALE: WERNER SOMBART AND THE NARRATIVE OF ECONOMICS, (Aug 1997): 153–166.https://doi.org/10.4324/9780203435984-11Metin M. Coşgel Consumption Institutions, Review of Social Economy 55, no.22 (Jun 1997): 153–171.https://doi.org/10.1080/00346769700000031Bruce Pietrykowski Knowledge and Power in Adult Education: Beyond Freire and Habermas, Adult Education Quarterly 46, no.22 (Jul 2016): 82–97.https://doi.org/10.1177/074171369604600203Robert F. Garnett Markets, Modernism, and Marx: Some Thoughts on Economics after the Cold War, Rethinking Marxism 8, no.33 (Sep 1995): 26–37.https://doi.org/10.1080/08935699508685450Colin Hay Rethinking Crisis: Narratives of the New Right and Constructions of Crisis, Rethinking Marxism 8, no.22 (Jun 1995): 60–76.https://doi.org/10.1080/08935699508685442Jack Amariglio, David F. Ruccio Postmodernism, Marxism, and the Critique of Modern Economic Thought, Rethinking Marxism 7, no.33 (Sep 1994): 7–35.https://doi.org/10.1080/08935699408658108Bruce Pietrykowski Consuming Culture: Postmodernism, Post-Fordism, and Economics, Rethinking Marxism 7, no.11 (Mar 1994): 62–80.https://doi.org/10.1080/08935699408658087George DeMartino Beneath “First Principles”: Controversies Within the New Macroeconomics, Journal of Economic Issues 27, no.44 (Jan 2016): 1127–1153.https://doi.org/10.1080/00213624.1993.11505489George DeMartino Review, Rethinking Marxism 6, no.44 (Dec 1993): 128–133.https://doi.org/10.1080/08935699308658081Diana Strassmann The Stories of Economics and the Power of the Storyteller, History of Political Economy 25, no.11 (Mar 1993): 147–165.https://doi.org/10.1215/00182702-25-1-147Stephen Resnick, Richard Wolff REPLY TO RICHARD PEET, Antipode 24, no.22 (Apr 1992): 131–140.https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-8330.1992.tb00433.xJulie Graham ANTI-ESSENTIALISM AND OVERDETERMINATION - A RESPONSE TO DICK PEET, Antipode 24, no.22 (Apr 1992): 141–156.https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-8330.1992.tb00434.xJonathan Crush The discourse of progressive human geography, Progress in Human Geography 15, no.44 (Jul 2016): 395–414.https://doi.org/10.1177/030913259101500402

Interpretative Sociology and Axiological Neutrality in Max Weber and Werner Sombart

Interpretative Sociology and Axiological Neutrality in Max Weber and Werner Sombart

Pourquoi n'y a-t-il pas de football aux États-Unis ? l'autre "exceptionnalisme" américain

Why is there no soccer in the United States ? The other American " exceptionalism ", Andrei S. Markovits. Soccer was rejected in the United States because of the development of sports consi- dered more in accordance with the national culture of the New World. At both Harvard and Yale in the 19th century, American football was imposed from above, out of an elitist reflex towards British imported games. The more popular baseball prevented the social extension of soccer to the population at large. Like the weakness of socialism in that " bourgeois " society, that of soccer is the second sign of a certain American " exceptionalism " pointed out at the beginning of the 20th century by Werner Sombart.

Quantitative analysis of historical material as the basis for a new cooperation between history and sociology (1980)

There is no shortage of programmatic statements on systematic cooperation between historians and sociologists, but actual joint work has rather been impeded by just such programs. This is not a unique experience, as programs for interdisciplinary work between other disciplines often fared no better1. Interdisciplinarity as a sustained activity requires certain conditions quite different from those emphasized in many of the programmatic statements. It is the contention of this paper that these conditions now exist for the quantitative analysis of historical materials. So far, the most important contributions to sociology were the work of scholars who as individuals were able to synthesize knowledge from sociology and history. Among the several scholars from the founding period of sociology such as Lorenz v. Stein, Robert v. Mohl, Gustav Schmoller, Werner Sombart, Joseph Schumpeter , Max Weber stands out as a scholar with a universal knowledge by the standards of his time who translated historical material into a basis for a systematic sociology2. Contrary to Weber's reception in the USA and from there subsequently in other countries, his colleagues in Germany saw in him more of a social historian than of a sociologist; von Wiese' s reference to Max Weber in his short History of Sociology as a promising empiricist and economic historian is representative3. As the knowledge of historical detail accumulates such a synthesis as an individual accomplishment becomes an obvious impossibility safe for a selectivity and level of abstraction from details that earn such attempts the epiteton tour de force. In such uses of universal history as by Herbert Spencer, or Oswald Spengler, or Pitirim Sorokin historical material is not really the object of an analysis but illustra-

Reactionary Modernism. Technology, Culture and Politics in Weimar and the Third Reich

Preface 1. The paradox of reactionary modernism 2. The conservative revolution of Weimar 3. Oswald Spengler: bourgeois antinomies, reactionary reconciliations 4. Ernest Junger's magical realism 5. Technology and three mandarin thinkers 6. Werner Sombart: technology and the Jewish question 7. Engineers as ideologues 8. Reactionary modernism in the Third Reich 9. Conclusion Bibliographical essay Index.