Consciousness and Society

<p>Hughes' ideas and the way they are expressed in Consciousness and Society have become paradigms of twentieth-century scholarship. In dealing with the changing social thought after 1890 in Europe Hughes covers a wide array of thinkers and issues in a scholarly yet graceful manner. His is a study of the cluster of genius of Europe at that time: Croce Durkheim Freud Weber and Nietzsche as well as other great European minds. The book explores questions that are still relevant in today's society: Is the separation of facts and values tenable or even desirable? Can rationality accommodate the ideas of a Bergson or a Freud? Is there or should there be a relationship between science and religion? And does history have any ultimate meaning for later generations?</p>