La psychologie populaire en Allemagne

The Mind of The Nation. Völkerpsychologie in Germany, 1851-1955

Egbert Klautke is Lecturer in the Cultural History of Central Europe in the School of Slavonic and East European Studies at University College London. 

Berghahn, New York and Oxford

194 pages, bibliog., index
ISBN 978-1-78238-019-1 

$72.00/£45.00 

Published (August 2013)

Völkerpsychologie played an important role in establishing the social sciences, in Germany and abroad, 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” in Germany 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.”