DOCSLIB.ORG

Social History Would Be Termed ‘Social Geography’ There Has Been Too Jones E 1975 Readings in Social Geography

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Download full-text PDF Read full-text
Social History Would Be Termed ‘Social Geography’ There Has Been Too Jones E 1975 Readings in Social Geography Social History would be termed ‘social geography’ there has been too Jones E 1975 Readings in Social Geography. Oxford University little interaction between those researchers working on Press, Oxford, UK developing and developed countries. There are, how- Johnston R J 1987 Theory and methodology in social geo- ever, some indications that this is changing with graphy. In: Pacione M (ed.) Social Geography: Progress and Prospect. Croom Helm, London greater appreciation of the implications of the globali- Johnston R L, Gregory D, Smith D M 1994 The Dictionary of zation of communication and economic relationships Human Geography, 3rd edn. Blackwell, Oxford, UK and the significance of diasporic cultures. Meinig D (ed.) 1979 The Interpretation of Ordinary Landscapes. For many social geographers the growth of cultural Oxford University Press, New York geography presents an opportunity to combine many Pahl R 1965 Trends in social geography. In: Chorley R J, of the themes of the two sub-disciplines in fruitful Haggett P (eds.) Frontiers in Geographical Teaching. Methuen, investigation of social inequality and difference and to London focus on and destabilize definitions of a wider range of Pahl 1975 Whose City? 2nd edn. Penguin, Harmondsworth, UK ‘social groups’—such as disabled people and gay and Rex J 1968 The sociology of a zone in transition. In: Pahl R E (ed.) Readings in Urban Sociology. Pergamon Press, Oxford, lesbian people. Social geographers’ tradition of pol- UK itical engagement and ethnographic research can Smith D 1977 Human Geography: A Welfare Approach. Edward combine positively with cultural geographers’ sen- Arnold, New York sitivity to discourse and symbolic expression of dif- Shevky E, Bell W 1955 Social Area Analysis. Stanford University ference. The rapprochements between social, cultural, Press, Stanford, CA and development geographers seem likely to produce valuable research. Nevertheless, the term ‘social geo- S. Bowlby graphy’ on its own—as opposed to ‘social and cultural geography’ or ‘social and development geo- graphy’—seems likely to revert to its earlier obscur- ity. See also: Access: Geographical; Behavioral Geo- Social History graphy; Crime, Geography of; Critical Realism in Geography; Cultural Geography; Disability, Geo- The term ‘social history’ refers to a subdiscipline of the graphy of; Gender and Feminist Studies in Geo- historical sciences on the one hand and to a general graphy; Humanistic Geography; Marxist Geography; approach to history that focuses on society at large on Postcolonial Geography; Postmodern Urbanism; the other hand. In both manifestations social history Postmodernism in Geography; Qualitative Methods developed from marginal and tentative origins at the in Geography; Residential Segregation: Geographic end of the nineteenth and the beginning of the Aspects; Rural Geography; Sexuality and Geography; twentieth centuries and experienced a triumphant ex- pansion from the 1950s to the 1980s. Throughout, Space and Social Theory in Geography; Spatial social history can be best defined in terms of what it Analysis in Geography; Time-geography; Urban wants not to be or against that to which it proposes an Geography; Urban System in Geography alternative. On one hand it distinguished itself from political history, which had been dominant during most of the Bibliography nineteenth and the early twentieth centuries. Conse- quently, the ‘social’ in social history meant dealing Bowlby S R, McDowell L 1987 The feminist challenge to social with the structures of societies and social change, geography. In: Pacione M (ed.) Social Geography: Progress social movements, groups and classes, conditions of and Prospect. Croom Helm, London work and ways of life, families, households, local Castells M 1976 Theoretical propositions for an experimental study of urban social movements. In: Pickvance C (ed.) Urban communities, urbanization, mobility, ethnic groups, Sociology: Critical essays. Methuen, London etc. On the other hand social history challenged Giddens A 1981 A Contemporary Critique of Historical Mat- dominant historical narratives which were constructed erialism. Macmillan, London around the history of politics and the state or around Gould P, White R 1974 Mental Maps. Penguin, London the history of ideas by stressing instead social change Hagerstrand T 1975 Space, time and human conditions. In: as a core dimension around which historical synthesis Karlqvist A, Lundqvist L, Snickars F (eds.) Dynamic Al- and diagnosis of the contemporary world should be location of Urban Space. Saxon House, Farnborough, UK, pp. organized. With these aims in mind, social historians 3–14 (including historical sociologists and economic histor- Hanson S, Pratt G 1995 Gender, Work and Space. Routledge, New York ians) sought to uncover the relationships between Harvey D 1973 Social Justice and the City. Edward Arnold, economic, demographic and social processes and London structures, as well as their impact on political insti- Jackson P, Smith S 1984 Exploring Social Geography. Allen and tutions, the distribution of resources, social move- Unwin, London ments, shared worldviews, and forms of public and 14299 Social History private behavior. For the comprehensive variant of in Strasbourg. Not surprisingly, their journal was first ‘social history,’ the term ‘history of society’ (Gesell- called Annales d’histoire eT conomique et sociale schaftsgeschichte) has gained currency. Not only in (1929–1939). The international exchanges and mutual Western Europe and North America but also in other observation between some of the protagonists of parts of the world, the establishment, expansion, and historiographic innovations in the early decades of the specialization of social history belong among the twentieth century were intense. Thus, only two years significant trends of interwar and particularly postwar after the French flagship, the Polish journal Roczniki intellectual and academic life. Nevertheless, in recent dziejow spolecznych i gospodarczych (Yearbooks for years, it shares with other fields of the humanities and social and economic history) appeared. These early social sciences a ‘time of doubts’ (Chartier 1993), a journals shared a further characteristic which dist- period of challenges from interpretative, construc- inguished them from the mainstream political history tivist, and discursive approaches (Palmer 1990, around them, namely a keen interest for ‘universal,’ Bonnel and Hunt 1999). non-nationalistic history. In Germany, social and economic history remained a specialized branch without much impact on general 1. Early Institutionalization (Late history. In England, economic history maintained Nineteenth–Early Twentieth Century) close links to social themes. After World War II, the French Annales historians tended to move Like other generations of historians in the twentieth their journal away from its earlier identification with century that have at some point used the label ‘new’ this ‘subdiscipline.’ Similarly, the program represented for themselves, the claim to innovation by social by Ernest Labrousse for a history of class relations historians in the 1960s and 1970s obscured the rich taking as its starting point the economic ‘basis’ diversity of predecessors and competitors, which goes broadened out more and more into the areas of urban back to the second half of the nineteenth century history, quantitative analysis of social strata and the (Kocka 1986). In that period, the academic profes- integral description of regional societies. Where ‘social sionalization and disciplinary differentiation of econ- and economic history’ continued to be an insti- omics, sociology, and political science on the one hand tutionalized specialty, it did not necessarily figure as and history on the other prevailed. an area of major innovations, as was later the case The mutual contact zones or, by contrast, the with the ‘new’ history of the 1960s and 1970s. strength of boundaries were marked by significant These early efforts to establish a specialized field national differences. The resulting interactions and and an alternative view of history with ‘society’ as the hierarchies between these ‘fields of knowledge’ (Ringer main object and organizing principle of analysis were 1992) differed in respect to the amount of space they paralleled by similar movements in various countries. provided for historical approaches. The ‘Historical In the USA, the New History of the turn of the century; School’ of political economy in Germany, dominant in in France, Henri Berr with his Reue de SyntheZ se the last third of the nineteenth century, is a case in (Historique) starting in 1900 and the reception of point. It was part of economics and did not gain much Durkheimian sociology by historians; in Germany, recognition in the discipline of history. Some pro- the development of a historical sociology by Max fessional historians took part in a process of specializ- Weber and others; and in Great Britain in the first half ation in ‘social and economic history’ that kept a of the twentieth century the impulses of George Unwin critical distance as much from this strand of economics and R. H. Tawney for the development of an economic as from the traditional history of great men, events, history that included social and cultural factors, were and ideas. The development of the combined field all among the most influential strands of socio- ‘social and economic history’ marked a double oppo- historical thinking (Iggers 1975). sition, on the one hand to the history
Load more

Recommended publications
  • Historians of Technology in the Real World: Reflections on the Pursuit of Policy-Oriented History
    Historians of Technology in the Real World: Reflections on the Pursuit of Policy-Oriented History Richard F. Hirsh Technology and Culture, Volume 52, Number 1, January 2011, pp. 6-20 (Article) Published by The Johns Hopkins University Press DOI: 10.1353/tech.2011.0039 For additional information about this article http://muse.jhu.edu/journals/tech/summary/v052/52.1.hirsh.html Access provided by Virginia Polytechnic Inst. __ACCESS_STATEMENT__ St.University __ACCESS_STATEMENT__ (Viva) (6 Feb 2014 13:11 GMT) 02_52.1hirsh 6–20:03_49.3dobraszczyk 568– 1/22/11 7:49 AM Page 6 Historians of Technology in the Real World Reflections on the Pursuit of Policy-Oriented History RICHARDF.HIRSH Nearly all historians writing about their craft begin by explaining the value of studying the past. According to the authors of a popular primer, history represents a collective memory that provides an awareness of past events, helping us shape our present and future.1 History has great practical signif- icance, notes another academic, because “intelligent action” draws on past experience.2 As a consequence of the way pedagogues extol the relevance of their work, many high-school students can paraphrase Santayana’s dictum that “[t]hose who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.”3 Despite widespread acceptance of the notion that history provides tan- gible benefits, historians usually remain reluctant to apply “lessons” to real- world situations, especially in the realms of public and business policy. Eager to be viewed as unbiased, dispassionate observers of events, most aca- demic historians seem happy to write primarily for their peers.
    [Show full text]
  • Testing Civics: State-Level Civic Education Requirements and Political Knowledge
    Testing Civics: State-Level Civic Education Requirements and Political Knowledge Professor David E. Campbell Department of Political Science 217 O’Shaughnessy Hall University of Notre Dame Notre Dame, IN 46556 Phone: 574-631-7809/ Fax: 574-631-4405 [email protected] Professor Richard G. Niemi Department of Political Science University of Rochester Rochester, NY 14627 Phone: 585-275-5364/Fax: 585-271-1616 niemi@[email protected] Forthcoming, American Political Science Review Abstract Do state-level exams in civics have an impact on young people’s civic knowledge? We hypothesize that civics exams have the biggest effect in states where they matter most—i.e., where they are a requirement for high school graduation—the incentive hypothesis. We further hypothesize that civics requirements have the biggest effect on young people with less exposure to information about the U.S. political system at home, specifically Latinos and, especially, immigrants—the compensation hypothesis. We test these hypotheses with two sources of data—first, from high school students with the 2006 and 2010 National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) civics test, and second, from a large national survey of 18-24 year-olds. Across the two datasets, we find modest support for the incentive hypothesis and strong support for the compensation hypothesis. 1 Policymakers and political scientists alike have long recognized the importance of formal civic education for youth.1 Currently, “each state’s constitution or public education establishment statutes and codes acknowledge the civic mission of schools” (Campaign for the Civic Mission of Schools 2015). Historically, schools have served as the key institution to educate immigrants about the nation’s system of governance and thus equip them for involvement in the nation’s political life (Gutmann 1999; Hochschild and Scovronick 2003; Macedo 2005).
    [Show full text]
  • Law and Political Economy in a Time of Accelerating Crises
    Angela P. Harris, School of Law, UC Davis James J. (“Jay”) Varellas III, Department of Political Science, UC Berkeley* Introduction: Law and Political Economy in a Time of Accelerating Crises Abstract In this time of accelerating crises nationally and worldwide, conventional understandings of the relationships among state, market, and society and their regulation through law are inadequate. In this Editors’ Introduction to Volume 1, Issue 1 of the Journal of Law and Political Economy, we reflect on our current historical moment, identify genealogies of the Law and Political Economy (LPE) project, articulate some of the intellectual foundations of the work, and finally discuss the journal’s institutional history and context. Keywords: Law and Political Economy I. Introduction Ernest Hemingway’s 1926 novel The Sun Also Rises contains this famous exchange: “How did you go bankrupt?” Bill asked. “Two ways,” Mike said. “Gradually and then suddenly.” In the United States and around the world, we are facing intertwined crises: skyrocketing economic inequality, an increasingly destabilizing and extractive system of global finance, dramatic shifts in the character of work and economic production, a crisis of social reproduction, the ongoing disregard of Black and brown lives, the rise of new authoritarianisms, a global pandemic, and, of course, looming above all, the existential threat of global climate change. From the vantage point of mid-2020, it is impossible to avoid the sense that these crises, like Mike’s bankruptcy, have emerged both suddenly and as the result of problems long in the making. It is also clear that these interlocking crises are accelerating as they collide with societies whose capacities to respond have been hollowed out by decades of neoliberalism.
    [Show full text]
  • Historical Sociology Vs. History
    Julia Adams. The Familial State: Ruling Families and Merchant Capitalism in Early Modern Europe. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2005. xi + 235 pp. $35.00, cloth, ISBN 978-0-8014-3308-5. Reviewed by Susan R. Boettcher Published on H-Low-Countries (November, 2007) Historical Sociology vs. History discipline, gender relations) developed by practi‐ Two fundamental concerns of historical soci‐ tioners of the "new cultural history."[2] In her ology have always been the origin and nature of new book on the relationship of gender to devel‐ modernity. In response to modernization and de‐ oping states, Adams claims to be "charting ... new pendency theory, which seemed to present territory in the study of the formation of Euro‐ modernity as an objectively describable condi‐ pean states" (p. 12). However, while Adams adds tion, previous generations of historical sociolo‐ some elements to her account, especially gender gists studied comparative issues in early modern and the colonial economy, if this work is indica‐ European history, especially themes emphasized tive of the "new" historical sociology, it provides in that body of theory, such as democratic revolu‐ us primarily with another version of the story tion and the emergence of the nation-state. Those rather than new questions, different approaches, sociologists (one thinks of Charles Tilly, Theda or perhaps most importantly, new characteriza‐ Skocpol, Barrington Moore, and Immanuel tions of the genesis and trajectory of the early Wallerstein) enriched not only the questions his‐ modern state. torians asked but substantially influenced the so‐ Adams's book is organized in an introduction cial history written in response.
    [Show full text]
  • History from a Philosophic Perspective
    CANADIAN SOCIAL STUDIES VOLUME 41 NUMBER 1, Fall 2008 www.quasar.ualberta.ca/css History from a Philosophic Perspective Catherine Broom Simon Fraser University Return to Articles Abstract One of the key components of Social Studies has always been history, yet many of us seldom explore what we mean by history. This paper delves into the meaning of history through an examination of Collingwood’s work and a discussion of how we can incorporate twentieth century thought into his work. This paper aims, in Collingwood’s words, to “deepen understanding” of our craft. Philosophy of History: Collingwood The philosophies of history of Thucydides, Plato, Aristotle, Polybius, St Augustine, Bodin, Vico, Herder, and Hegel (selections in Tillinghast, 1963) and Collingwood (1956) make clear that understanding “history” is not easy. The questions that have to be answered, such as for and of whom is it written and why, are philosophical ones. Most of these philosophers saw history from a religious viewpoint: they viewed its events as illustrating the unfolding of “Providence,” or God’s purpose. However, Collingwood’s work (1956) illustrates the true meaning of history. Collingwood argues that certain early accounts, such as in pre­Greek societies, or certain modern accounts, like those based on dividing societies into a number of epochs, such as Marx’s, are not really history, as they shape facts to suit their larger theoretical frameworks. Rather, history is the re­enactment of past thought in the mind of a historian in order to answer a question about people in the past the historian has first articulated.
    [Show full text]
  • A New Era in the Study of Global History Is Born but It Needs to Be Nurtured
    [JCH 5.1-2 (2018–19)] JCH (print) ISSN 2051-9672 https://doi.org/10.1558/jch.39422 JCH (online) ISSN 2051-9680 A New Era in the Study of Global History is Born but It Needs to be Nurtured Harvey Whitehouse1 University of Oxford, UK Email: [email protected] (corresponding author) Peter Turchin2 University of Connecticut Email: [email protected] (corresponding author) Pieter François3, Patrick E. Savage4, Thomas E. Currie5, Kevin C. Feeney6, Enrico Cioni7, Rosalind Purcell8, Robert M. Ross9, Jennifer Larson10, John Baines11, Barend ter Haar12, R. Alan Covey13 Abstract: Thisa rticle is a response to Slingerland e t al. who criticize the quality of the data from Seshat: Global History Databank utilized in our Nature paper entitled “Complex Societies Precede Moralizing Gods throughout World History”. Their cri- tique centres around the roles played by research assistants and experts in procuring and curating data, periodization structure, and so-called “data pasting” and “data fill- ing”. We show that these criticisms are based on misunderstandings or misrepresenta- tions of the methods used by Seshat researchers. Overall, Slingerland et al.’s critique (which is crosslinked online here) does not call into question any of our main findings, but it does highlight various shortcomings of Slingerland et al.’s database project. Our collective efforts to code and quantify features of global history hold out the promise of a new era in the study of global history but only if critique can be conducted con- structively in good faith and both the benefitsa nd the pitfalls of open science fully recognized.
    [Show full text]
  • Herodotus and the Origins of Political Philosophy the Beginnings of Western Thought from the Viewpoint of Its Impending End
    Herodotus and the Origins of Political Philosophy The Beginnings of Western Thought from the Viewpoint of its Impending End A doctoral thesis by O. H. Linderborg Dissertation presented at Uppsala University to be publicly examined in Engelska Parken, 7-0042, Thunbergsvägen 3H, Uppsala, Monday, 3 September 2018 at 14:00 for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. The examination will be conducted in English. Faculty examiner: Docent Elton Barker (Open University). Abstract Linderborg, O. H. 2018. Herodotus and the Origins of Political Philosophy. The Beginnings of Western Thought from the Viewpoint of its Impending End. 224 pp. Uppsala: Department of Linguistics and Philology, Uppsala University. ISBN 978-91-506-2703-9. This investigation proposes a historical theory of the origins of political philosophy. It is assumed that political philosophy was made possible by a new form of political thinking commencing with the inauguration of the first direct democracies in Ancient Greece. The pristine turn from elite rule to rule of the people – or to δημοκρατία, a term coined after the event – brought with it the first ever political theory, wherein fundamentally different societal orders, or different principles of societal rule, could be argumentatively compared. The inauguration of this alternative-envisioning “secular” political theory is equaled with the beginnings of classical political theory and explained as the outcome of the conjoining of a new form of constitutionalized political thought (cratistic thinking) and a new emphasis brought to the inner consistency of normative reasoning (‘internal critique’). The original form of political philosophy, Classical Political Philosophy, originated when a political thought launched, wherein non-divinely sanctioned visions of transcendence of the prevailing rule, as well as of the full range of alternatives disclosed by Classical Political Theory, first began to be envisioned.
    [Show full text]
  • The Political History of Nineteenth Century Portugal1
    The Political History of Nineteenth Century Portugal1 Paulo Jorge Fernandes Autónoma University of Lisbon [email protected] Filipe Ribeiro de Meneses National University of Ireland [email protected] Manuel Baiôa CIDEHUS-University of Évora [email protected] Abstract The political history of nineteenth-century Portugal was, for a long time, a neglected subject. Under Salazar's New State it was passed over in favour of earlier periods from which that nationalist regime sought to draw inspiration; subsequent historians preferred to concentrate on social and economic developments to the detriment of the difficult evolution of Portuguese liberalism. This picture is changing, thanks to an awakening of interest in both contemporary topics and political history (although there is no consensus when it comes to defining political history). The aim of this article is to summarise these recent developments in Portuguese historiography for the benefit of an English-language audience. Keywords Nineteenth Century, History, Bibliography, Constitutionalism, Historiography, Liberalism, Political History, Portugal Politics has finally begun to carve out a privileged space at the heart of Portuguese historiography. This ‘invasion’ is a recent phenomenon and can be explained by the gradual acceptance, over the course of two decades, of political history as a genuine specialisation in Portuguese academic circles. This process of scientific and pedagogical renewal has seen a clear focus also on the nineteenth century. Young researchers concentrate their efforts in this field, and publishers are more interested in this kind of works than before. In Portugal, the interest in the 19th century is a reaction against decades of ignorance. Until April 1974, ideological reasons dictated the absence of contemporary history from the secondary school classroom, and even from the university curriculum.
    [Show full text]
  • The History of Computing in the History of Technology
    The History of Computing in the History of Technology Michael S. Mahoney Program in History of Science Princeton University, Princeton, NJ (Annals of the History of Computing 10(1988), 113-125) After surveying the current state of the literature in the history of computing, this paper discusses some of the major issues addressed by recent work in the history of technology. It suggests aspects of the development of computing which are pertinent to those issues and hence for which that recent work could provide models of historical analysis. As a new scientific technology with unique features, computing in turn can provide new perspectives on the history of technology. Introduction record-keeping by a new industry of data processing. As a primary vehicle of Since World War II 'information' has emerged communication over both space and t ime, it as a fundamental scientific and technological has come to form the core of modern concept applied to phenomena ranging from information technolo gy. What the black holes to DNA, from the organization of English-speaking world refers to as "computer cells to the processes of human thought, and science" is known to the rest of western from the management of corporations to the Europe as informatique (or Informatik or allocation of global resources. In addition to informatica). Much of the concern over reshaping established disciplines, it has information as a commodity and as a natural stimulated the formation of a panoply of new resource derives from the computer and from subjects and areas of inquiry concerned with computer-based communications technolo gy.
    [Show full text]
  • The Historiography of Social Movements Å
    Chapter 1 The Historiography of Social Movements å Halfway through the twentieth century, Fernand Braudel raised a call for establishing a productive dialogue between history and the social sciences whereby history might freely employ indispensable concepts that it was incapable of developing by itself, and the social sciences might acquire the temporal depth they lacked. He went on to state that there would be no social science ‘other than by the reconciliation in a simultaneous practice of our different crafts’. The convergence of history with the social sciences was baptized ‘social history’ and later, in the United States, as ‘historical sociology’ to underline sociologists’ shift towards historiography.1 At the fi rst international congress of historical sciences held after the Second World War in Paris, 1950, Eric Hobsbawm was involved in the section on social history, ‘probably the fi rst in any historical congress’, as he recalls in his autobiography.2 It gained momentum in 1952 with the creation of the British journal Past and Present, which brought to- gether a group of Marxist historians (Hobsbawm himself, Christopher Hill, Rodney Hilton, George Rudé, and E.P. Thompson), joined by such prominent scholars as Lawrence Stone, John Elliot and Moses Finley. Meanwhile, in the United States, historical sociology took its fi rst steps forward with Barrington Moore, the Harvard teacher of Charles Tilly. It would be very hard to fi nd a sociologist who has taken better ad- vantage of history than Tilly. With the exception of his fi rst book, on the counter-revolution in the Vendée (published in 1964), long duration, which Braudel conceptualized as the history of structures, is the time- frame for Tilly’s analysis, whether it be of social struggles in France, state systems, European revolutions, democracy or social movements worldwide.
    [Show full text]
  • A Historical Database of Sociocultural Evolution
    Cliodynamics: The Journal of Theoretical and Mathematical History UC Riverside Peer Reviewed Title: A Historical Database of Sociocultural Evolution Journal Issue: Cliodynamics, 3(2) Author: Turchin, Peter, University of Connecticut Whitehouse, Harvey Francois, Pieter Slingerland, Edward Collard, Mark Publication Date: 2012 Publication Info: Cliodynamics, The Institute for Research on World-Systems, UC Riverside Permalink: http://escholarship.org/uc/item/2v8119hf Acknowledgements: This research was supported by grants from the Evolution Institute (PT), from UK’s Economic and Social Research Council (HW, PT, and PF), and from Canada’s Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (ES and MC). We thank David Sloan Wilson, Douglas White, J.G. Manning, Joseph Henrich, Ara Norenzayan, Metin Cosgel, and Garrett Fagan for extensive discussions and comments on database design. Local Identifier: irows_cliodynamics_15770 Abstract: The origin of human ultrasociality—the ability to cooperate in huge groups of genetically unrelated individuals—has long interested evolutionary and social theorists, but there has been little systematic empirical research on the topic. The Historical Database of Sociocultural Evolution, which we introduce in this article, brings the available historical and archaeological data together in a way that will allow hypotheses concerning the origin of ultrasociality to be tested rigorously. In addition to describing the methodology informing the set-up of the database, our article introduces four hypotheses that we intend to test using the database. These hypotheses focus on the resource base, warfare, ritual, and religion, respectively. Ultimately the aim of our database is to eScholarship provides open access, scholarly publishing services to the University of California and delivers a dynamic research platform to scholars worldwide.
    [Show full text]
  • The Rise and Domestication of Historical Sociology
    The Rise and Domestication of" Historical Sociology Craig Calhoun Historical sociology is not really new, though it has enjoyed a certain vogue in the last twenty years. In fact, historical research and scholarship (including comparative history) was central to the work of many of the founders and forerunners of sociology-most notably Max Weber but also in varying degrees Karl Marx, Emile Durkheim, and Alexis de Tocqueville among others. It was practiced with distinction more recently by sociologists as disparate as George Homans, Robert Merton, Robert Bellah, Seymour Martin Lipset, Charles Tilly, J. A. Banks, Shmuel Eisenstadt, Reinhard Bendix, Barrington Moore, and Neil Smelser. Why then, should historical sociology have seemed both new and controversial in the 1970s and early 1980s? The answer lies less in the work of historical sociologists themselves than in the orthodoxies of mainstream, especially American, sociology of the time. Historical sociologists picked one battle for themselves: they mounted an attack on modernization theory, challenging its unilinear developmental ten- dencies, its problematic histori<:al generalizations and the dominance (at least in much of sociology) of culture and psycllology over political economy. In this attack, the new generation of historical sociologists challenged the most influential of their immediate forebears (and sometimes helped to create the illusion that historical sociology was the novel invention of the younger gener- ation). The other major battle was thrust upon historical sociologists when many leaders of the dominant quantitative, scientistic branch of the discipline dismissed their work as dangerously "idiographic," excessively political, and in any case somehow not quite 'real' sociology. Historical sociology has borne the marks of both battles, and in some sense, like an army always getting ready to fight the last war, it remains unnecessarily preoccupied with them.
    [Show full text]