Benjamin Nelson

Benjamin Nelson (born February 11, 1911 , † September 17, 1977 ) was an American sociologist and historian of ideas.

Life

Nelson grew up in a wealthy family. His father was a real estate agent and his mother a writer who published in Yiddish. After attending City College - during which time he worked part-time for the New York Times as a sermon reporter - he took up a doctorate in 1931 at Columbia University . He received his PhD with a thesis on "The Restitution of Usury". In 1945 he went to the University of Chicago , where he taught in the "Social Science Program". In 1948 he went to Minnesota , later to Stony Brook University and the New School for Social Research . His main topics included the origin and spread of modern thought patterns and convictions and the work of Max Weber . In his main work "The Idea of ​​Usury" he investigated the question of who and under what circumstances people consider others to be their own, using the interest prohibition topic .

He was a founding member and Vice President of the Society for the Scientific Study of Religion and President of the International Society for the Comparative Study of Civilizations.

Works

• On the Roads to Modernity: Conscience, Science, and Civilizations : Selected Writings, Totowa 1981
• The Idea of ​​Usury. From Tribal Brotherhood to Universal Otherhood (1949); 2nd expanded edition Chicago 1969
• The Origin of Modernism , Frankfurt / M. 1977
• Bibliography of Nelson's works

literature

• Edmund Leites , "From Tribal Brotherhood to Universal Otherhood": On Benjamin Nelson. In: Social Research, Vol. 61, No. 4, pp. 955-965
• Friedrich H. Tenbruck , Nekrolog Benjamin Nelson . In: Cologne Journal for Sociology and Social Psychology, 30/1978, p. 400 ff.