{"product_id":"the-art-of-the-network-9780822341000","title":"The Art of the Network","description":"\u003cb\u003eBook Synopsis\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWriting letters to powerful people to win their favour and garner rewards such as political office, tax relief, and recommendations was an institution in Renaissance Florence. This title presents the study of political and social patronage in 15th-century Florence.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eTrade Review\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“\u003ci\u003eThe Art of the Network\u003c\/i\u003e is a magnificent contribution to the social history of Renaissance Florence and the sociological study of how networks manifest themselves in complex societies. Paul D. McLean addresses with gusto such fundamental issues as the nature of social capital, the preservation of self, and the development of the ‘individual’ in European history. This will be a controversial book for all the right reasons.”—William J. Connell, Seton Hall University, editor of \u003ci\u003eSociety and Individual in Renaissance Florence\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“Paul D. McLean weaves slants from Bourdieu and Swidler and Goffman together into his own trenchant vision of networking as identity process. You get analytic power along with rich historical understanding wrung from recalcitrant handwriting and ambiguous pronouncements in hundreds of letters across two centuries. Yet McLean is also witty and playful. His brief conclusion is an account of agency and culture so lucid as to be transposable to studies of your own.”—Harrison C. White, Columbia University, author of \u003ci\u003eIdentity and Control: A Structural Theory of Social Action\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“\u003ci\u003eThe Art of the Network\u003c\/i\u003e is more than a tour de force of textual analysis and historical explanation. McLean has written a significant work of sociological theory that makes new contributions to ongoing debates on the nature of social identity and the relationship between agency and structure. . . . This innovative book, as exemplar and prescription, deserves serious attention from cultural and historical sociologists as well as from theorists.” -- Richard Lachmann * American Journal of Sociology *\u003cbr\u003e“By providing a lucid and plausible account of how interaction is constituted by cultural work, he does a great service for those who wish to be analytical about culture in social networks. McLean’s rich description of rhetorical devices with which interactions are expressed provides a useful taxonomy for further explanatory analysis of culture and interaction.” -- Hrag Balian * Canadian Journal of Sociology *\u003cbr\u003e“McLean’s study of the material and the process is the most systematic study ever undertaken, and for patronage letter junkies like myself it makes compulsive reading. . . . Historians can lean much from this book.” -- Dale Kent * American Historical Review *\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eTable of Contents\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003eList of Tables and Figures ix\u003cbr\u003e Preface xi\u003cbr\u003e 1. The Principles of Networking as a Social Process 1\u003cbr\u003e 2. The Rhetoric and Design of Florentine Letter Writing 35\u003cbr\u003e 3. The Socially Contested Concept of Honor 59\u003cbr\u003e 4. What Gets Said When in Patronage Letters 90\u003cbr\u003e 5. The Dynamics of Office Seeking 121\u003cbr\u003e 6. Friends of Friends: \u003ci\u003eRaccomandazione\u003c\/i\u003e as Rhetoric and as Constitutive Principle 150\u003cbr\u003e 7. Patronage and the Stalled Transformation of the State 170\u003cbr\u003e 8. “Servants and Slaves in Everything and for Everything”: Renaissance Networking and the Emergent Modern Self? 193\u003cbr\u003e Conclusion: Culture and the Network 224\u003cbr\u003e Notes 231\u003cbr\u003e Bibliography 255\u003cbr\u003e Index 279","brand":"Duke University Press","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":49406048403799,"sku":"9780822341000","price":98.6,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0817\/1739\/5799\/files\/9780822341000.jpg?v=1730494357","url":"https:\/\/bookcurl.com\/products\/the-art-of-the-network-9780822341000","provider":"Book Curl","version":"1.0","type":"link"}