Norbert Elias: the contribution of Sociology to European History

Abstract

Norbert Elias (1897-1990) became one of the most influential sociologists from the 1970s to the present. He renewed the connection between sociology, history and psychoanalysis. Elias launched new subjects of study, such as the society of manners, court society, control of emotions, minorities of new comers, old age. His vision of a society of individuals, based on interdependence, challenged the idea of structures. His work, open to game theory, has to be seen in parallel to the work of Michel Foucault and Pierre Bourdieu.