Sociology emerging in the 19th century as the study of national societies is the intellectual product of its time power relations and social imaginaries. As a discursive practice that was enmeshed in the meta-narratives of modernity the discipline of sociology bears the inherent capacity to shape socially shared concepts and construct collective identities. This book examines the relationships between sociology and projects of national identity construction and presents a critique of Shmuel N. Eisenstadt the prominent Israeli sociologist known as the father of Israeli sociology. The book focuses on Eisenstadtâs sociology of Israel as a case of knowledge construction within an ideological system and examines the relationships between his various sociological analyses of Israeli society and the Zionist imaginary namely the deeply entrenched political myths and historiographical narratives that constitute Israelâs hegemonic national identity. By emphasizing the interrelation between textuality identity and loaded language the volume seeks to demythologize Eisenstadtâs sociology of Israel. Three major concepts in Eisenstadtâs scholarship are specifically thematized: integration civilization and modernities. In each of these foci the author shows how Eisenstadtâs sociological conjectures reproduce dominant Zionist historiographical representations of the past rationalize prevalent social hierarchies reify the boundaries of a national collective Self and render legitimacy to Israelâs governing ethnocratic tendencies underlying the premises of the Zionist settler-colonial project. Sociological Knowledge and Collective Identity will appeal to those interested in the interconnectedness of sociology and political memory as well as in a radical postcolonial reconstruction of sociology. . Language: English