The long-term transformations of societal and personality structures are the central theme of Norbert Elias's work. How did civilization progress in the West? What did it consist of? What were its drives, causes, or engines? Elias's work is neither an investigation of evolution in the sense of the 19th century nor an examination of an unspecific social change in the sense of the 20th century; his work is fundamental for a non-dogmatic, empirically grounded sociological theory of social processes.