The Mind Of The Nation

Volkerpsychologie played an important role in establishing the social sciences via the works of such scholars as Georg Simmel, Emile Durkheim, Ernest Renan, Franz Boas, and Werner Sombart. In Germany, the intellectual history of folk psychology was represented by Moritz Lazarus, Heymann Steinthal, Wilhelm Wundt and Willy Hellpach.

This book follows the invention of the discipline in the nineteenth century, its rise around the turn of the century and its ultimate demise after the Second World War. In addition, it shows that despite the repudiation of folk psychology and its failed institutionalization, the discipline remains relevant as a precursor of contemporary studies of national identity.

Egbert Klautke is Lecturer in the Cultural History of Central Europe in the School of Slavonic and East European Studies at University College London. He is the author of Unbegrenzte Moglichkeiten: Amerikanisierung in Deutschland und Frankreich, 1900-1933 (2003). Review: This is a very careful and meticulous study of the history of a forgotten science, namely Volkerpsychologie, a scholarly attempt to study the psychological structure of nations.

We can now understand not just its complex origins reaching back to the German intellectual history of the early 19th century, but also the intellectual intricacies in the works of its main protagonists. * Uffa Jensen, Max Planck Institute for Human Development This is a valuable and original study of an important subject...

The author presents a new narrative of the genesis and decline of Volkerpyschologie [that] is characterised by careful and illuminating scholarship, starting with detailed analysis of the principal authors' writings and proceeding to evaluate their impact. * Mark Hewitson, University College London