The Art of the Network

Writing 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; the practice was an important tool for those seeking social mobility, security, and recognition by others. In this detailed study of political and social patronage in fifteenth-century Florence, Paul D. McLean shows that patronage was much more than a pursuit of specific rewards. It was also a pursuit of relationships and of a self defined role in relation to others. To become an independent individual in Renaissance Florence, one first had to become connected.With "The Art of the Network", McLean fills a gap in sociological scholarship by tracing the historical antecedents of networking and examining the concept of self that accompanies it. His analysis of patronage opens into a critique of contemporary theories about social networks and social capital, and an exploration of the sociological meaning of "culture." McLean scrutinized thousands of letters to and from Renaissance Florentines. He describes the social protocols the letters reveal, paying particular attention to the means by which Florentines crafted credible presentations of themselves. The letters, McLean contends, testify to the development not only of new forms of self-presentation but also of a new kind of self to be presented: an emergent, "modern" conception of self as an autonomous agent. They also bring to the fore the importance that their writers attached to concepts of honour, and the ways that they perceived themselves in relation to the Florentine state.

ISBN 0822341174   Pages 296 ISBN13 9780822341178 (What's this?)   Volumes 001 Publisher Duke University Press   Weight (grammes) 435 Imprint Duke University Press   Published in North Carolina Format Paperback   Series title Politics, History, & Culture Publication date 15 Jan 2008   Height (mm) 234 Library of Congress DG735.6   Width (mm) 161 DEWEY 945.5105   Spine width (mm) 18 DEWEY edition DC22   Academic level Professional / Scholarly

		List of Tables and Figures
		Preface
1		The Principles of Networking as a Social Process		1
2		The Rhetoric and Design of Florentine Letter Writing		35
3		The Socially Contested Concept of Honor		59
4		What Gets Said When in Patronage Letters		90
5		The Dynamics of Office Seeking		121
6		Friends of Friends: Raccomandazione as Rhetoric and as Constitutive Principle		150
7		Patronage and the Stalled Transformation of the State		170
8		"Servants and Slaves in Everything and for Everything": Renaissance Networking and the Emergent Modern Self?		193
		Conclusion: Culture and the Network		224
		Notes		231
		Bibliography		255
		Index		279

"The Art of the Network 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 Society and Individual in Renaissance Florence "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 Identity and Control: A Structural Theory of Social Action

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