Mannheim, Karl

Mannheim, Karl (män`hīm), 1893–1947, Austro-Hungarian sociologist and historian, born and educated in Hungary. He taught at Heidelberg and Frankfurt and, from 1933 to his death, at the Univ. of London. In his historical writings he emphasized the role of social values. Mannheim was influenced by—but critical of—Karl Marx. His best-known work is Ideology and Utopia (1929, tr. 1936), but his essays were influential in developing the field of the sociology of knowledge, which studies how ideas should be analyzed in their social context.

Bibliography

See studies by F. W. Rempel (1965) and J. J. P. Maquet (1951, repr. 1973).

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Mannheim, Karl

(born March 27, 1893, Budapest, Austria-Hungary—died Jan. 9, 1947, London, Eng.) Hungarian sociologist. Mannheim taught in Germany (University of Heidelberg, 1926–30; Frankfurt am Main, 1930–33) before the rise of Adolph Hitler. He was invited to England by political scientist Harold Laski and for the rest of his career taught there (London School of Economics, 1933–43; University of London, 1943–47). He helped found the sociology of knowledge, the study of how knowledge is produced and maintained in societies. He emphasized the role that ideology plays in shaping knowledge, a view he discussed in his major work, Ideology and Utopia (1929).