Crowds and Democracy

Stefan Jonsson is a writer and critic based in Sweden and professor of ethnic studies at Linkoping University. His previous books include A Brief History of the Masses: Three Revolutions and Subject Without Nation: Robert Musil and the History of Modern Identity.

In his demonstrable command of the cross-disciplinary fund of available literatures and their respective knowledges, Jonsson's treatments effectively dissolve any meaningful boundary among literary criticism, philosophical explication, and intellectual and cultural history. -- Geoff Eley, University of Michigan In his strikingly choreographed and beautifully written study, Jonsson traverses an extensive archive, delving into novels and artworks, philosophy, historiography, and psychoanalysis. From this remarkable interdisciplinary bricolage emerges a profound set of insights into the shifting notions of the masses during the interwar years. -- Kerstin Barndt, University of Michigan A magnificent sociocultural analysis, written with the erudition of the intellectual historian and the vision of a photographer in the captivating prose of the experienced journalist. -- Goran Therborn, University of Cambridge Stefan Jonsson's book analyzes in depth, but also with wit and elegance, the centrality of the 'masses' as a problematic category in the troubled trajectories of Germany and Austria in the interwar period. Reading discourses and images that range from sociology to theater and photography, with Simmel and Freud as core theorists of the new regime of the collective passions and expressionism and modernism as extreme forms of its aesthetic representation, Jonsson convincingly argues that what was at stake and made democracy unstable was not only the violence of political movements but also the aporia of the modern individuality. This offers fascinating insights into our own contemporary cultural crisis. -- Etienne Balibar, author of We, the People of Europe? Reflections on Transnational Citizenship

• List of Illustrations Preface 1. Introducing the Masses: Vienna 2. Authority Versus Anarchy: Allegories of the Mass in Sociology and Literature 3. The Revolving Nature of the Social: Primal Hordes and Crowds Without Qualities 4. Collective Vision: A Matrix for New Art and Politics 5. Coda: Remnants of Weimar Notes Index