This book brings to light the diverse modes of social thought, their relation to each other, and to the historical emergence of the modern State, the Market, and the Individual. Osterberg investigates the connection between statistics and sociology, the development of sociology as a de-Christianized rendering of conservative thought, and the materialist conception of history as seen in the writings of Marx, Engels, Adorno, and Bourdieu. He also discusses recent avant garde reactions to the materialists.