The Civilizing Process

Peter Leithard writes:

The German historian of manners Norbert Elias begins his book The Civilizing Process by asking how the “modes of behaviour considered typical of people who are civilized in a Western way” came about. Through a survey of etiquette books and other documents dealing with topics like table manners, blowing one’s nose, spitting, the deportment of the body, facial expressions, and the control of bodily functions, Elias argues that Westerners went through a gradual and uneven affective transformation during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. By the end of the process, behaviors considered normal in the Middle Ages had been ruled “barbarous.” This civilized separation from barbarity signaled major changes in feelings of delicacy, shame, refinement, and repugnance.

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Norbert Elias wiki
Amazon (wiki on the book)
Norbert Elias Foundation
HyperElias
A review of a bio
SociologyProfessor
ChangingMinds.org
Norbert Elias's Theory of Civilizing Processes Again Under Discussion:
An exploration of the sociology of regimes