Authority

Condition remarks:
Book: Good
Jacket: Wear and tear with damage
Pages: Tanning and foxing

What does it mean to submit to authority — and why do we so often resent the very power we depend upon? In Authority, sociologist and cultural critic Richard Sennett presents a penetrating analysis of the emotional bonds that tie individuals to figures of power, arguing that authority is not merely a political or institutional fact but a profoundly psychological and social experience. Drawing on history, psychoanalysis, literature, and everyday life, Sennett chronicles the complex ways in which human beings invest leaders, bosses, fathers, and institutions with legitimacy — and how that investment breeds both dependency and resentment. Sennett writes with the lucid authority of a scholar equally at home in the seminar room and the street, weaving together case studies and cultural analysis to illuminate the contradictions at the heart of modern social life. Authority argues that the crisis of authority in contemporary Western society is not simply a breakdown of order but a failure of the imagination — an inability to construct relationships of visible, legible power that feel genuine rather than arbitrary. A landmark work in social theory, this book challenges readers to reconsider the invisible hierarchies that shape their daily existence, leaving one to wonder whether true authority can ever be reconciled with human freedom.