Fritz Ringer (1934-2006) taught at Harvard, Indiana, and Boston Universities and was Mellon Professor of History Emeritus at the University of Pittsburgh.

• PART I: THEORETICAL CONSIDERATIONSChapter 1. The Intellectual Field, Intellectual History, and the Sociology of KnowledgeChapter 2. The Origins of Karl Mannheim’s Sociology of KnowledgePART II: EDUCATION AND THE MIDDLE CLASSESChapter 3. Education, Economy, and Society in Germany, 1800–1960Chapter 4. Education and the Middle Classes in Modern FrancePART III: QUANTITATIVE STUDIESChapter 5. Patterns of Access to the Modern European UniversityChapter 6. A Sociography of German Academics, 1863–1938PART IV: ESSAYS IN COMPARATIVE INTELLECTUAL HISTORYChapter 7. Bildung and its Implications in the German Tradition, 1890–1930Chapter 8. Ideas of Education and of Systematic Knowledge: France, ca. 1900, in Comparative Perspective