To reflect on Karl Mannheim is to address fundamental issues of political enlightenment Mannheim's driving determination "was to learn as a sociologist by close observation the secret (even if it is infernal) of these new times

Introduction: The Biography of a Project; 1: Politics as a Science; 2: Idealism, Romanticism, and Sociology; 3: Mannheim's Weimar Project: Ways of Knowledge; 4: The Politics of Synthesis; 5: Religion, Politics, and Education: Reassessing Civilization; 6: Diagnosis of Crisis; 7: American Hopes: The Dispute over Ideology and Utopia; 8: A Political Sociology: Mannheim and the Elite; Conclusion Sociology as a Vocation