Chair Professor of Social Theory Raymond Aron Fellow of the Institute for the Advancement of the Social Sciences at Boston University President of the History of Sociology Research Committee for the International Sociological Association (ISA) Fellow of the Center for Asian Pacific Studies Honorary Fellow, Department of Sociology, University of Edinburgh International Editorial Board Member: the Canadian Journal of Sociology; Current Sociology; Journal of Classical Sociology; Max Weber Studies; Society; Sociological Theory (from November 2011).

Research | Top

1. Social and political thought

2. History of predatory regime types

3. Political language

Publications | Top

Books and Journal Special Issues

Journal of Classical Sociology. Special Issue on the Thought and Legacy of Raymond Aron. Guest Editor and contributor. 11:2 (2011).

Hannah Arendt, Totalitarianism and the Social Sciences (Author), Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2010.
http://www.sup.org/book.cgi?id=11050

Caesarism, Charisma and Fate (Author), New Brunswick, N.J. Transaction, 2008, pp. 243.

Eichmann and the Holocaust. (A truncated version of Hannah Arendt's Eichmann in Jerusalem that first appeared in Peter Baehr [ed.] The Portable Hannah Arendt.)New York: Penguin, 2005, pp. 130.

Journal of Classical Sociology. Special Issue on the Centenary of Max Weber’s “Protestant Ethic”. Guest Editor. 5:1 (2005).

Dictatorship in History and Theory: Bonapartism, Caesarism, Totalitarianism (Co-editor [with Melvin Richter] and contributor), Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004, pp. 308.

Founders, Classics, Canons: Modern Disputes over the Origins and Appraisal of Sociology's Heritage (Author), New Brunswick, N.J.: Transaction, 2002, pp. 241.

The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism and Other Writings (Co-editor/translator [with Gordon C. Wells]), New York: Penguin, 2002, pp. 392.
Nominated for the Wolff (Translation) Prize, 2003

Citizenship Studies. Special Issue on Citizenship and Democracy in Hong Kong 5:2 (2001), (Editor and Contributor), pp.131.

The Portable Hannah Arendt, (Editor), New York: Penguin, 2000; 2nd ed. 2003, pp. 576 + lxii.

Caesar and The Fading of the Roman World: A Study in Republicanism and Caesarism, (Author), New Brunswick, N.J: Transaction, 1998, pp. 359. A Choice "Outstanding Book of 1998".

Max Weber: The Russian Revolutions, (Co-editor/translator, Gordon C. Wells), Cornell University Press, 1995, pp. 287.

Current Sociology. Special Issue on Canons 42:1 (1994). (Co-author, with Mike O’Brien), pp. 126.

Articles, Book Chapters and Reviews since 2000

"Totalitarian Ideologies: Conflicting Interpretations," in Tommaso Piffer (editor), Totalitarian Societies and Democratic Transition (Bologna: Il Mulino; forthcoming, in Italian, 2011).

"Diversity Reappraised," Culture and Human Being (forthcoming, in Farsi, 2011).

"Imagining Sociological Theory," (Review Essay) Canadian Journal of Sociology (36:2) 2011, pp. 213-218,  http://ejournals.library.ualberta.ca/index.php/CJS/article/view/10556/8118

"Purity and Danger in the Modern University," Society 48 (4) 2011, pp. 297-300.

"A Talk in Tehran," MercatorNet, June 2011, http://www.mercatornet.com/articles/view/a_talk_in_tehran/

"Marxism and Islamism. Intellectual Conformity in Raymond Aron's Time and Our Own," Journal of Classical Sociology (11:2), 2011, pp. 173-190.

"China the Anomaly: Hannah Arendt, Totalitarianism and the PRC," European Journal of Political Theory, (9:3), 2010, pp. 267-286.

"Leon Botstein on Hannah Arendt and Max Weber: An Interview," Max Weber Studies, (10:1), 2010, pp. 95-100.

Book review of Pierre Birnbaum, Geography of Hope: Exile, the Enlightenment, Disassimilation. Canadian Journal of Sociology 35:1, 2010, pp. 159-161.

"The Novelty of Jihadist Terror," Society, (46:3), 2009, pp. 210-13. Italian version La nuova costellazione del terrorismo in Ventunesimo Secolo, June 2009.

"The Fabrication of Man," History of the Human Sciences, 22:2, 2009, pp. 121-127.

"Tribes and Terror in the Middle East: A Conversation with Philip Carl Salzman," Society, (46:5), 2009, pp. 394-397.

"Banality and Cleverness," Thinking in Dark Times: Hannah Arendt on Ethics and Politics (eds. Roger Berkowitz, Jeff Katz and Thomas Keenan). New York: Fordham University Press, 2009, pp. 138 - 142.

"An American University in Afghanistan: An Interview with Athanasios Moulakis," Society, 46(1), 2008, pp.9-11.

"City under Siege," in Networked Disease: Emerging Infections in the Global City (eds. Harris Ali and Roger Keil). Oxford: Blackwell, 2008, pp. 138 - 151.

Book Review of Dmitry Shlapentokh, The Proto-Totalitarian State: Punishment and Control in Absolutist Regimes, International History Review, 30:3, September 2008,  pp. 603-4.

"What are the 'Knowledge Conditions' of Sociology?," Current Sociology, 56:6, 2008, pp. 943 - 951.

Book Review of Sam Whimster, Understanding Weber, Canadian Journal of Sociology, 33:3, 2008, pp. 701-703.

"'The Masses' in Hannah Arendt's Theory of Totalitarianism," The Good Society, 16:2, 2007, pp.12-18.

Review of Steve Fuller "The New Sociological Imagination," British Journal of Sociology, 58:3, 2007, pp.500-1.

"Philosophy, Sociology, and the Intelligentsia," in Journal of Social Sciences and Philosophy, 19:3, 2007, pp.341-373. (In Chinese and English).

"Fascism, Ethnic Cleansing, and the 'New Militarism': Assessing the Recent Historical Sociology of Michael Mann," Critical Review of International Social and Political Philosophy, 10:1, 2007, pp. 99-113.

"Randall Collins," in John Scott (editor), in Fifty Contemporary Sociologists. London: Routledge, 2006, pp. 54-59. Translated into Portuguese in 50 Grandes Sociólogos Contemporâneos. Editora Contexto: Sâo Paulo, 2009.

"Pacifismo Realista", Ventunesimo Secolo, October 2006, pp. 217-226.

"Susan Sontag, Battle Language, and the SARS Outbreak in Hong Kong," Economy and Society, 35 (1) 2006, pp. 42-64.

"Social Extremity, Communities of Fate, and the Sociology of SARS," European Journal of Sociology, 46:2, 2005, pp. 179-211.

“Schicksalsgemeinschaft in German Political Thought,” Societas 13, 2005, pp. 81-200 (in Chinese).

"Deciphering a Classic Text: The Protestant Ethic and the 'Spirit' of Capitalism" 100 Years On," Shiso 10:978, 2005, pp. 6-26 (in Japanese).

 “The Sociology of Almost Everything” (Debate with Randall Collins), Canadian Journal of Sociology Online Jan.-Feb. 2005. http://www.cjsonline.ca/reviews/interactionritual.html

“Totalitarianism,” New Dictionary of the History of Ideas Vol. 6, 2005, pp. 2342-2348.

“Personal Dilemma or Intellectual Influence? The Relationship between Hannah Arendt and Max Weber,” Max Weber Studies 5.1, 2005, pp. 125-130.

“Max Weber and the Avatars of Caesarism,” in Dictatorship in History and Theory: Bonapartism, Caesarism, Totalitarianism (Co-editor [with Melvin Richter] and contributor), Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004, pp. 155-174.

“Of Politics and Social Science,” European Journal of Political Theory 3:2, 2004, pp. 191-217.

“In Search of Joanna Tse: Reflections on Heroism and Decency in Extreme Situations,” Quest 3:2, 2004, pp. 13-35.

“On the Heroism of Decency,” St. John’s Review 72, 2004, pp. 20-21.

“Hong Kong, la Cina continentale e l’epidemia della Sars” Ventunesimo Secolo 6, 2004, pp. 91-115

“The Critical Path,” Times Literary Supplement 31st January 2003, pp. 3-5. Feature article

“City of Masks,” Canadian Journal of Sociology Online March-April 2003.

“Touched souls,” Times Literary Supplement, 28 November 2003, 24-25.

“Heart, Character, and a Science of Man,” Political Theory 31:1, 2003, pp. 117-125. 

“Identifying the Unprecedented: Hannah Arendt, Totalitarianism and the Critique of Sociology,” American Sociological Review 67:6, 2002, pp. 804-831. 

Entries on a) “Asian Values” and b) “Classics of Sociology” in William Outhwaite (ed.) Dictionary of Modern Social Thought. Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 2002.

“Freedom, Politics, and Social Science: Hannah Arendt in America,” in David Kettler (ed.), Contested Legacies: The German-Speaking Intellectual and Cultural Emigration to the United States and United Kingdom, 1933-1945, Annandale-on-Hudson: Bard College, 2002, pp. 4-7.

Review of “In the Grip of Freedom,” by Cary Boucock, Canadian Journal of Sociology, 27:4, 2002, pp. 587-590.

“A Wheel that has Come Off,” Times Literary Supplement 12th April 2002, pp. 3-4. Feature article

“The People's Republic of China and Hong Kong’s New Political Dispensation,”
Citizenship Studies 5:2, 2001, pp. 101-125.

“The Iron Cage and the Shell as Hard as Steel: Parsons, Weber and the stahlhartes Gehäuse metaphor in The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism,” History and Theory 40:2, 2001, pp. 153-169.

“Sentinels in a Pitch Black Night,” Society 38:3, 2001, pp. 80-84. 

“The Grammar of Prudence,” in Steven Aschheim (ed.), Hannah Arendt in Jerusalem (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2001, pp. 306-324, (endnotes on 407-416).

“My Father's Watch” (memoir), TickleAce: A Journal of Literary and Visual Art, 36, 2001, pp. 84-86.

“E.P. Thompson and European Nuclear Disarmament: A Critical Retrospective,” Online Journal of Peace and Conflict Resolution 3:1 March 2000.

“Feature Review” of books by Ruth Cherrington, Bruce Gilley and Willy Wo-Lap Lam, China Review International 7:1, 2000, pp. 7-18. 

“Carl Schmitt and the Contradictions of Liberal Democracy” (with Richard Bellamy), in Richard Bellamy, Rethinking Liberalism. London: Pinter, 2000, pp. 67-90

“The anti-politics of two-world theory,” Hannah Arendt Newsletter, 3, May 2000, pp. 15-17. 

“Frieda and the Sphinx,” Times Literary Supplement, Feb. 11, 2000, pp. 5-8.

Professor Peter Baehr's CV

Teaching Subjects | Top

Academic Year:  2011-2012:
1st Term:	SOC201	Classical Sociological Theory

 

All the courses offered by the Department of Sociology and Social Policy for this and past terms are available at these links: Current term / Past terms. Simply follow the link and click on the course you would like to view information on.