Karl Mannheim

Born Károly Manheim in Hungary on 27 March 1893, Karl Mannheim became one of the founders of the sociology of knowledge and a central figure in classical sociology. His 1929 book Ideology and Utopia laid out a framework that would define the field: he separated partial ideologies from total ones — the latter being entire worldviews tied to specific social groups — and drew a line between ideologies that defend the present order and utopias that imagine its transformation. The work placed him at the center of debates about how thought itself is conditioned by social life. He died on 9 January 1…