A History Of Charisma

This book traces the history of the word 'charisma', and the various meanings assigned to it, from its first century origins in Christian theology to its manifestations in twenty-first century politics and culture, while considering how much of the word's original religious meaning persists in the contemporary secular understanding.

This book traces the history of the word 'charisma', and the various meanings assigned to it, from its first century origins in Christian theology to its manifestations in twenty-first century politics and culture, while considering how much of the word's original religious meaning persists in the contemporary secular understanding.

This book demonstrates how the modern relationship between leaders and followers in America grew out of late-nineteenth and early-twentieth century charismatic social movements.

Max Weber laid the foundations for the meaning of ‘charisma’ in modern secular usage. This new volume argues for the importance of the ‘charismatic principle’ in history, economics and society. This volume brings together a number of contributors at the cross section between economics, theology, sociology and politics in order to set a research agenda for the following issues: What does it means to have a ‘charism’? How does it work in society? How might one distinguish a ‘charism’ from a talent? Are ‘charism’s given only to "special" people, or are they also present in ordinary people? Is a ‘charism’ necessarily associated with religion, or, is it, as we submit, possible to imagine ‘charisms’ at work within a secular perspective? Which are the principle perspectives of the role of ‘charisms’ in social history? How have the ‘charisms’ of noted personalities (e.g., Benedict, Francis, Gandhi) changed economic and social history? What insights might be drawn from ‘civil charisms’ such as the cooperative movement, non-profit organizations, social economy, and values-based organizations? This book seeks to answer these questions through the employment of an interdisciplinary perspective, which examines the theme of the charismatic principle in social life in different fields of application.

Tracing the transformation of early modern academics into modern researchers from the Renaissance to Romanticism, Academic Charisma and the Origins of the Research University uses the history of the university and reframes the "Protestant Ethic" to reconsider the conditions of knowledge production in the modern world. William Clark argues that the research university—which originated in German Protestant lands and spread globally in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries—developed in response to market forces and bureaucracy, producing a new kind of academic whose goal was to establish originality and achieve fame through publication. With an astonishing wealth of research, Academic Charisma and the Origins of the Research University investigates the origins and evolving fixtures of academic life: the lecture catalogue, the library catalog, the grading system, the conduct of oral and written exams, the roles of conversation and the writing of research papers in seminars, the writing and oral defense of the doctoral dissertation, the ethos of "lecturing with applause" and "publish or perish," and the role of reviews and rumor. This is a grand, ambitious book that should be required reading for every academic.

Much of the writing on charisma focuses on specific traits associated with exceptional leaders, a practice that has broadened the concept of charisma to such an extent that it loses its distinctiveness – and therefore its utility. More particularly, the concept's relevance to the study of social movements has not moved beyond generalizations. The contributors to this volume renew the debate on charismatic leadership from a historical perspective and seek to illuminate the concept's relevance to the study of social movements. The case studies here include such leaders as Mahatma Gandhi; the architect of apartheid, Daniel F. Malan; the heroine of the Spanish Civil War, Dolores Ibarruri (la pasionaria); and Mao Zedong. These charismatic leaders were not just professional politicians or administrators, but sustained a strong symbiotic relationship with their followers, one that stimulated devotion to the leader and created a real group identity.

An immersive examination of why the age of democratic revolutions was also a time of hero worship and strongmen In Men on Horseback, the Princeton University historian David A. Bell offers a dramatic new interpretation of modern politics, arguing that the history of democracy is inextricable from the history of charisma, its shadow self. Bell begins with Corsica’s Pasquale Paoli, an icon of republican virtue whose exploits were once renowned throughout the Atlantic World. Paoli would become a signal influence in both George Washington’s America and Napoleon Bonaparte’s France. In turn, Bonaparte would exalt Washington even as he fashioned an entirely different form of leadership. In the same period, Toussaint Louverture sought to make French Revolutionary ideals of freedom and equality a reality for the formerly enslaved people of what would become Haiti, only to be betrayed by Napoleon himself. Simon Bolivar witnessed the coronation of Napoleon and later sought refuge in newly independent Haiti as he fought to liberate Latin America from Spanish rule. Tracing these stories and their interconnections, Bell weaves a spellbinding tale of power and its ability to mesmerize. Ultimately, Bell tells the crucial and neglected story of how political leadership was reinvented for a revolutionary world that wanted to do without kings and queens. If leaders no longer rule by divine right, what underlies their authority? Military valor? The consent of the people? Their own Godlike qualities? Bell’s subjects all struggled with this question, learning from each other’s example as they did so. They were men on horseback who sought to be men of the people—as Bell shows, modern democracy, militarism, and the cult of the strongman all emerged together. Today, with democracy’s appeal and durability under threat around the world, Bell’s account of its dark twin is timely and revelatory. For all its dangers, charisma cannot be dispensed with; in the end, Bell offers a stirring injunction to reimagine it as an animating force for good in the politics of our time.