Hostname: page-component-76fb5796d-9pm4c Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-04-25T15:54:21.325Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

History and Sociology: The Lost Synthesis

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  04 January 2016

Andrew Abbott
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

One might have predicted that “as sociology meets history” (Tilly 1981), there would arise a demand for synthesis, for a history-as-social-science that would combine the best of both disciplines. A few voices, chief among them the late Philip Abrams (1982), issued that call. But the synthesis has not arrived. Today the relation between history and sociology is that of parents from differing backgrounds whose adolescent children have contracted a friendship at school. There is a pleasant but empty cordiality between the elders. Although the adolescents have an acrimonious rivalry, they close ranks against parental orthodoxies of either sort. One hopes that the young people will cooperatively transform the social attitudes of their parents, but unthinking loyalties ultimately prevent this transformation. So the synthesis of history and sociology, or more broadly of history and social science, has not arrived. Today, the most synthetic call we hear is for each (sub)discipline to keep the other honest (e.g., Roy 1987b).

Type
Research Article
Information
Social Science History , Volume 15 , Issue 2 , Summer 1991 , pp. 201 - 238
Copyright
Copyright © Social Science History Association 1991 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Abbott, A. (1982) “The emergence of American psychiatry, 1880-1930.” Ph.D. diss., University of Chicago.Google Scholar
Abbott, A. (1983) “Sequences of social events.” Historical Methods 16: 129-47.Google Scholar
Abbott, A. (1988) “Transcending general linear reality.” Sociological Theory 6: 169-86.Google Scholar
Abbott, A. (1990a) “Positivism and interpretation in sociology.” Sociological Forum 5: 435–58.Google Scholar
Abbott, A. (1990b) “A primer on sequence methods.” Organization Science 1: 373-92.Google Scholar
Abbott, A. (1990c) “Conceptions of time and events in social science methods.” Historical Methods 23: 140-50.Google Scholar
Abell, P. (1987) The Syntax of Social Life. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Abell, P. (1989) “Games in networks.” Rationality and Society 1: 259-82.Google Scholar
Abell, P. (1990) “The theory and method of comparative narratives.” Unpublished manuscript, Department of Sociology, University of Surrey.Google Scholar
Abrams, P. (1982) Historical Sociology. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.Google Scholar
Ad Hoc Committee on ASA Future Organization Trends (1989) “The future organizational trends of the ASA.” Footnotes 17(6): 1–6.Google Scholar
Alter, G. (1981) “History and quantitative data.” Historical Methods 14: 145-48.Google Scholar
Barthes, R. (1974) S/Z. New York: Hill and Wang.Google Scholar
Berger, P., and Luckmann, T. (1967) The Social Construction of Reality. New York: Doubleday.Google Scholar
Berkhofer, R. F. (1983) “The two new histories.” OAH Newsletter 11(2): 9–12.Google Scholar
Bemert, C. (1983) “The career of causal analysis in American sociology.” British Journal of Sociology 34: 230-54.Google Scholar
Blumer, H. (1931) “Science without concepts.” American Journal of Sociology 36:515-33.Google Scholar
Blumer, H. (1956) “Social analysis and the ‘variable.’” American Sociological Review 21: 683-90.Google Scholar
Bogue, A. G. (1970) “United States: The ‘new political history,’” in Swierenga, R. (ed.) Quantification in American History. New York: Atheneum: 36–52.Google Scholar
Bogue, A. G. (1983) Clio and the Bitch Goddess. Beverly Hills, CA: Sage.Google Scholar
Bogue, A. G. (1990) “The quest for numeracy.” Journal of Interdisciplinary History 21: 89–116.Google Scholar
Bonneil, V. E. (1980) “The uses of theory, concepts, and comparison in historical sociology.” Comparative Studies in Society and History 22: 156-73.Google Scholar
Bourdelais, P. (1984) “French quantitative history.” Social Science History 8: 179-92.Google Scholar
Burawoy, M. (1989) “Two methods in search of science.” Theory and Society 18: 759–805.Google Scholar
Cappell, C. L., and Guterbock, T. M. (1986) “Dimensions of association in sociology.” Bulletin de méthode sociologique 9: 23–29.Google Scholar
Chatman, S. (1978) Story and Discourse. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.Google Scholar
Chirot, D. (1976) “Thematic controversies and new developments in the uses of historical materials by sociologists.” Social Forces 55: 232-41.Google Scholar
Cornell, L. L. (1987) “Reproduction, production, social science, and the past.” Social Science History 11: 43–52.Google Scholar
Dubois, E. C., Kelly, G. P., Kennedy, E. L., Korsmeyer, C. W., and Robinson, L. S. (1985) Feminist Scholarship. Urbana: University of Illinois Press.Google Scholar
Floud, R. (1984) “Quantitative history and people’s history.” Social Science History 8: 151-68.Google Scholar
Genette, G. (1980) Narrative Discourse. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.Google Scholar
Gerschenkron, A. (1967) “The discipline and I.” Journal of Economic History 27: 443-59.Google Scholar
Giddens, A. (1979) Central Problems in Social Theory. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press.Google Scholar
Goldstone, J. A. (1986) “How to study history.” Historical Methods 19: 82–84.Google Scholar
Guterbock, T. L., and Cappell, C. L. (1990) “Visible colleges.” Unpublished manuscript, University of Virginia and Northern Illinois University.Google Scholar
Hall, J. A. (1989) “They do things differently here.” British Journal of Sociology 40: 544-64.Google Scholar
Hall, S. (1978) “Marxism and culture.” Radical History Review 18: 5–14.Google Scholar
Hamilton, G. G., and J. Walton (1988) “History in sociology,” in Borgatta, E. F. and Cook, K. (eds.) The Future of Sociology. Newbury Park, CA: Sage: 181-99.Google Scholar
Hartz, L. (1955) The Liberal Tradition in America. New York: Harcourt Brace.Google Scholar
Higham, J. (1989) “Changing paradigms.” Journal of American History 76: 460-66Google Scholar
Hofstadter, R. (1968) The Progressive Historians. New York: Knopf.Google Scholar
Jarausch, K. H. (1984) “The international dimension of quantitative history.” Social Science History 8: 123-32.Google Scholar
Johnson, R. (1978) “Edward Thompson, Eugene Genovese, and socialist-humanist history.” History Workshop Journal, no.6: 79–100.Google Scholar
Judt, T. (1979) “A clown in regal purple.” History Workshop Journal, no. 7: 66–94.Google Scholar
Kammen, M. (1980) “The historian’s vocation and the state of the discipline in the United States,” in Kammen, M. (ed.) The Past before Us. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press: 19–46.Google Scholar
Kimeldorf, H. (forthcoming) “Bringing unions back in.” Labor History.Google Scholar
Knapp, P. (1983) “Can social theory escape from history?” History and Theory 23: 34–52.Google Scholar
Kocka, J. (1984) “Theories and quantification in history.” Social Science History 8: 169-78.Google Scholar
Kousser, M. J. (1980) “History QUASSHED.” American Behavioral Scientist 23: 885–904.Google Scholar
Kousser, M. J. (1990) “The state of social science history in the late 1980s.” Historical Methods 22: 13–20.Google Scholar
Lachmann, R. (1989) “In search of a comparative historical methodology.” Newsletter of the Comparative and Historical Sociology Section 1(2): 2–3.Google Scholar
Lerner, G. (1989) “A view from the women’s side.” Journal of American History 76: 446-56.Google Scholar
Lloyd, C. (1986) Explanation in Social History. Oxford: Basil Blackwell.Google Scholar
Lukes, S. (1975) Emile Durkheim. Harmondsworth, Middlesex, UK: Penguin.Google Scholar
McClelland, P. D. (1975) Causal Explanation and Model Building in History, Economics, and the New Economic History. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.Google Scholar
McDonald, T. J. (1990a) “What we talk about when we talk about history.” Paper presented at the CSST conference “The Historic Turn,” University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, 5 October.Google Scholar
McDonald, T. J. (1990b) “Faiths of our fathers.” Paper presented at the conference “Modes of Inquiry for American City History,” Chicago Historical Society, 25 October.Google Scholar
McMichael, P. (1990) “Incorporating comparison within a world-historical perspective.” American Sociological Review 55: 385-97.Google Scholar
Marini, M. M., and Singer, B. (1988) “Causality in the social sciences,” in Clogg, C. (ed.) Sociological Methodology. Washington, DC: American Sociological Association: 347–409.Google Scholar
Novick, P. (1988) That Noble Dream. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
O’Neill, W. L. (1986) American High. New York: Free Press.Google Scholar
Padgett, J. F. (1981) “Hierarchy and ecological control in federal budgetary decision-making.” American Journal of Sociology 87: 75–129.Google Scholar
Propp, V. (1975) Morphology of the Folktale. Austin: University of Texas Press.Google Scholar
Ragin, C. (1987) The Comparative Method. Berkeley and Los Angeles: Univer sity of California Press.Google Scholar
Ragin, C., and Zaret, D. (1983) “Theory and method in comparative research.” Social Forces 61: 731-54.Google Scholar
Richardson, L. (1990) “Narrative and sociology.” Journal of Contemporary Ethnography 19: 116-35.Google Scholar
Ricoeur, P. (1984-85) Time and Narrative. 3 vols., Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Roy, W. G. (1987a) Comparative Historical Sociology: Teaching Materials and Bibliography. Washington, DC: American Sociological Association.Google Scholar
Roy, W. G. (1987b) “Time, place, and people in history and sociology.” Social Science History 11: 53–62.Google Scholar
Samuel, R. (1980) “On the methods of the history workshop.” History Workshop Journal, no. 9: 162-76.Google Scholar
Scholes, R., and Kellogg, R. (1966) The Nature of Narrative. London: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Schottler, P. (1989) “Historians and discourse analysis.” History Workshop Journal 27: 37–65.Google Scholar
Schwartz, M. A. (1987) “Historical sociology in the history of American sociology.” Social Science History 11: 1–16.Google Scholar
Selbourne, D. (1980) “On the methods of the History Workshop.” History Workshop Journal, no. 9: 150-61.Google Scholar
Skocpol, T. (1979) States and Social Revolutions: A Comparative Analysis of France, Russia, and China. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Skocpol, T. (1984a) “Emerging agendas and recurrent strategies in historical sociology,” in Skocpol, T. (ed.) Vision and Method in Historical Sociology. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press: 356-91.Google Scholar
Skocpol, T. (1987) “Social history and historical sociology.” Social Science History 11: 17–30.Google Scholar
Skocpol, T. (1988) “An uppity generation and the revitalization of macroscopic sociology.” Theory and Society 17: 627-43.Google Scholar
Skocpol, T., and Somers, M. (1980) “The uses of comparative history in macrosocial inquiry.” Comparative Studies in Society and History 22: 174-97.Google Scholar
Skocpol, T., ed. (1984b) Vision and Method in Historical Sociology. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Sprague, D. N. (1978) “A quantitative assessment of the quantitative revolution.” Canadian Journal of History 13: 177-92.Google Scholar
Stedman Jones, G. (1976) “From historical sociology to sociological history.” British Journal of Sociology 27: 295–305.Google Scholar
Swierenga, R., ed. (1970) Quantification in American History. New York: Atheneum.Google Scholar
Sztompka, P. (1986) “The Renaissance of historical orientation in sociology.” International Sociology 1: 321-37.Google Scholar
Tilly, C. (1981) As Sociology Meets History. New York: Academic.Google Scholar
Tilly, C. (1984) Big Structures, Large Processes, Huge Comparisons. New York: Russell Sage Foundation.Google Scholar
Todorov, T. (1969) Grammaire du Decameron. The Hague: Mouton.Google Scholar
Todorov, T. (1977) Poetics of Prose. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.Google Scholar
Tuma, N. B., and Hannan, M. (1984) Social Dynamics. Orlando, FL: Academic.Google Scholar
Vogel, L. (forthcoming) “Telling tales.” Journal of Women’s History.Google Scholar
Wiener, J. (1989) “Radical history and the crisis in American history.” Journal of American History 76: 399–434.Google Scholar