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Social Theory and National Culture: The Case of British and American Absolute Idealism, 1860–1900

In this essay, taking as a case study the comparative history of the two groups that gave absolute idealism a leading edge in late nineteenth-century intellectual debate in the United States and Great Britain, I attempt to make a contribution to the recent trend toward the use of sophisticated or “difficult” ideas in comparative analysis (see Moore, 1979). My intentions are twofold: (1) to assist in the clarification of how “social theory” is developed, and (2) to provide an outline of how such comparative cultural analysis can be achieved. After a preliminary discussion of the concept of “social theory” and the component parts into which it can be separated, I proceed to identify the two groups in question, locate their philosophical schemes in the development of contemporary thought, and finally, attempt to demonstrate the value of the approach in an analysis of one aspect of their specifically social and political theories.