The proposal is to complete a research project leading to publication in book form on the social and political
thought of the Austrian writer and émigré to the United States, Hermann Broch (1886-1951). The motivating
conviction of the proposal is that while Broch`s reputation as a writer of novels, drama and poetry is secure and
well-researched, his significance as an author of complex theoretical writings on value fragmentation, on art, myth
and modern aesthetic culture, on ethics, death and the absolute, as well as on politics, mass psychology and human
rights, has suffered from a degree of scholarly neglect without comparison in the history of twentieth century social
thought. This project undertakes to demonstrate (i) Broch`s intellectual relationships to other social thinkers of the
twentieth century, notably Max Weber and Hannah Arendt, (ii) the internal conceptual unity of Broch`s thought,
with reference to all theoretical texts in the Gesammelte Werke and any other extant theoretical writings, and (iii)
the relevance of his thought to contemporary social theory, especially in connection with current debates about the
identity and validity of `old European thinking` in the wake of postmodernist, multiculturalist and postcolonialist
challenges. The distinctive claim of this project is to provide a systematic evaluative assessment of Broch`s work in
terms of its contribution to modern social and political thought.