Promotional Information

'This is a terrific book. Antonius Zondervan has done an excellent job distilling Philip Rieff's theoretical insights and presenting them in a sophisticated, critical, and informative way, drawing connections and bridges where necessary with other discourses. The use of language is lucid and elegant, and the information Zondervan has received directly from Rieff through interviews is fascinating.' -- Yiannis Gabriel, Tanaka Business School, Imperial College 'Sociology and the Sacred is groundbreaking work. There is a scarcity of secondary material on Philip Rieff, and he has, for a very long time, deserved a major study. Antonius Zondervan's book is a thorough and well-informed exposition on Rieff's work, and an excellent extrapolation of his implications for discussions about modernity.' -- Hamid Dabashi, Department of Middle East and Asian Languages and Cultures, Columbia University

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments

Introduction

1 A Bird’s-Eye View on Rieff’s Life and Work

2 Rieff’s Reading of Freudian Metapsychology

3 The Emergence of Psychological Man in Western Culture

4 Blueprint for a Theory of Culture

5 The Limits of Modernity

6 Late Modernity as Second Culture Camp

7 Rieff: Prophet of a Post-secular Culture

Notes

References

Index

About the Author

Antonius A.W. Zondervan is a theologian and independent scholar living in Utrecht, The Netherlands.

Reviews

‘Zondervan’s Sociology of the Sacred is a valuable companion to Reiff’s works. He provides a comprehensive interpretation … and he skillfully draws connections among theories about modernity across disciplines.’ - Pamela Leong (Sociology of Religion) ‘Zondervan's summary and analysis of Rieff's career is ably carried out, and he concludes with several sharp observations regarding the continuing utility of Rieff's ideas about culture.’ - Alan Sica (Canadian Journal of Sociology Online)