Hegelianism

This is a study of the rise of Hegelian thought throughout the intellectual world and in Germany in the first half of the nineteenth century. The book has three interrelated purposes. First it constitutes the first synthetic description and comprehensive reconstruction of the historical genesis and humanist transformation of Hegelian ideology. Secondly the study addresses the problem of recurrent patterns of hope and disillusionment in the successive phases of dialectical thought. Finally the book is concerned with ideological responses to the experience of communal and religious disintegration.