SOURCE: Preface to Ideology and Utopia: An Introduction to the Sociology of Knowledge, by Karl Mannheim, translated by Louis Wirth and Edward Shils, Harcourt Brace & Company, 1936, pp. viii-xxx.

In the following essay, Wirth outlines the central ideas in Ideology and Utopia in the context of modern sociological thought.

The original German edition of Ideology and Utopia appeared in an atmosphere of acute intellectual tension marked by widespread discussion which subsided only with the exile or enforced silence of those thinkers who sought an honest and tenable solution to the problems raised. Since then the conflicts which in Germany led to the destruction of the liberal Weimar Republic have been felt in various countries all over the world, especially in Western Europe and the United States. The intellectual problems which at one time were considered the peculiar preoccupation of German writers have enveloped virtually the whole world. What was...