The Possible Form of an Interlocution

“Nahum Dimitri Chandler’s insightful archival readings make outstanding contributions to the literature on W. E. B. Du Bois and Max Weber, illuminating their interlocution beyond the untenable but widespread idea of a ‘tutelary relation’ of the latter to the former. This book does not merely promise to make an original contribution to the study of the emergence of the modern sociological paradigm; it also helps to construct the historical genealogy of a set of problems lively discussed in contemporary social and political theory.” - Sandro Mezzadra, Professor of Political Theory in the Department of the Arts, University of Bologna

“With breathtaking vision and life-giving attention to archival discoveries too, Nahum D. Chandler radically illuminates a little-known history of interlocution between two of the modern world’s most influential thinkers and that interlocution’s vital global importance for future-oriented social theories of relation, difference, and possibility itself. Now more than ever, Chandler’s brilliant parsing of futural horizons of social thought provides necessary sustenance for readers hungry for both hope and change.” - Leslie A. Adelson, Jacob Gould Schurman Professor of German Studies Emerita, Cornell University