Abstract
This book is fascinating and a pleasure to read. Jason Hughes, one of the liveliest younger minds in the Eliasian firmament has teamed up with Eric Dunning, a formidable scholar who has made the implementation and exposition of Norbert Elias's approach to sociology central to a distinguished academic career that has spanned well over half a century. This book is a productive pooling of their joint wisdom.
Together, they have produced a nicely structured text. The introduction and first three chapters are devoted to setting out the significance of Elias's work for current crises in sociology and society, the challenges and rewards of ‘working with Elias’, the basic concepts of figurational sociology, and Elias's ‘central theory’. The last three chapters and the conclusion focus on more specific matters such as the development of knowledge and the sciences as social processes, related problems of values and method, issues raised by various critics as well as writers who have developed other perspectives such as Foucault, Bourdieu and Giddens, and the benefits of a possible future ‘relational’ turn towards figurational sociology.
The main value of the book is its compendious nature combined with its even tone. It covers the ground efficiently and systematically, including careful reservations and qualifications where they seem necessary to improve clarity. Because of its relatively demanding nature it might, perhaps, be most suitable for final year students or postgraduates. It is, definitely, a scholars' book in two senses: it has been written by two experts who are highly tuned in to their subject; and it requires from the reader, in turn, a high level of sustained concentration. It is rare to have such detailed and extended discussions of specific topics.
Certainly, anyone who has moved in Eliasian circles or passed through the Department of Sociology at Leicester University will want to have this book. One reason is that embedded in the beautifully baked crusty bread of this text are many tasty currants, tantalizing anecdotes of Elias in Leicester and in Ghana where he held a visiting chair in the early 1960s. These episodes and reported comments come from the rich store of Eric Dunning's memory as Elias's junior colleague, research collaborator and co-author.
When the author of this review was a lecturer in the Leicester department during the 1970s, he recalls Eric enthusiastically explaining the basics of the civilizing process over coffee on several mornings, and reporting the new insights that were coming from his latest meetings with Norbert, such as the shift from ‘configuration’ to ‘figuration’ in his thinking. Because of his intense and close involvement in the process by which Elias's thinking took shape and sometimes changed shape, Eric Dunning has a strong commitment to ensuring that Elias's approach, as he understands it, is clearly and properly understood by others. That commitment, both to the approach and to the man, shines through this book, which is a fitting witness to all three.