Social change is a reality. It has to happen. History shows mirror or truer way to analyse it with respect to time and space. History, in fact, said to be the constant reminder of the fact that change, even though permanent, is irregular and unpredictable. History thus provides a frame of reference and contextual tool to examine and analyse change carefully. Both sociology and history thus depends on each other to take complete stoke of reality. Sociology depends on history to understand past events, movements and social institutions. Needless to say that sociology is also concerned with the study of historical developments of society. Sociologist studies ancients or old traditions, culture, growth of civilisations, groups and institutions through historical analysis and interpretations. Notably, John Seely rightly said that history without sociology has no fruits and sociology without history has no roots. Both past and presets are equally important to understand any social issue in totality and in-depth.
Sociology as a discipline may provide help in terms of offering a particular frame of mind to study history and its phenomenal developments. For instance, the tool of sociological imagination may help one to go beyond the general facts, to look beyond the obvious and to examine aspects of any historical phenomena critically. In the words of C. Wright Mills (1959), who gave concept of social imagination, said that the tool of social imagination involves seeing the world in terms of biography and history. In his schemes of things, personal biographies, which sociology studies, are linked with social and historical context. Such linkages discreetly situated in the womb of historical phenomenon need to be explored. In fact, Mills emphasised on three aspects of human world; structure, biography and history. He developed his patterns of analysis at the intersection of above mentioned three dimensions of human world. He focuses on social structure in terms of formation and shaping of social world as a systemic reality. He further linked up human behaviour as shaped by particular patterns of social relationships. In his scheme of things, history added to the perception that the shape and formation of social structures are always specific to given time and space which vary from one period to another period, as they themselves are subject to change. Lastly, biography relates all such social structure and change with individual experiences delineating various aspects of social living by larger social and historical process and how their agency as member of society get shaped and re-shaped. To this effect, history may help to understand the context of any social issue to locate the problem and in understanding the issue thoroughly. To understand an issue, it may be noted that just going by one disciplinary approach or frame of reference may not help to obtain an enriched analysis of an issue rather the real answer of many problems of both sociology and history may be in sociological history and/or historical sociology.
Auguste Comte’s conception of sociology includes history in his analyses of growth of sociology and society. He dwells into causes and reasons of developments of humanity through various historical stages. Furthermore, as Tilly (2001) notes, Karl Marx’s Capital, Max Weber’s Economy and Society or Ferdinand Tonnies’ Gemeinschaft and Gesellschaft have elaborately used historical dimension to enrich their sociological analysis. Such analysis demonstrate that sociology takes help of history (for instance Weber’s elaboration of ideal type is an example of how sociologist have drawn to develop their sociological interpretations) to locate an issue and examine its significance. Furthermore, history has many things to offer to sociology. For instance, historical sources that are available provide a large body of data to sociologists for analysis on society, its growth and dynamics. For instance, social upheavals in Europe during late 1700s and 1800s motivated scholars to study society and understand the patterns of social developments. To this effect, there are ample examples which demonstrate linkages of sociology with history. For instance, many sociologists like Comte, Spencer, Marx, Durkheim, Weber, Simmel, Pareto, Parsons and even the contemporary sociologists such as Habermas, Manheim, Wallenstein, Castells, etc. used historical dimension in their sociological analysis. They placed ample emphasis on the origin of modernity, models of development and problems of urban communities. Sociology in its earlier period and in the beginning of 20th century was interested in both present and past. It essentially got historical phenomena as its integral part to define concepts and situate the same into the context. Sociological concepts also help in causal explanation of historically and culturally significant phenomenon.
The development of sociological theories is traced in 19th and 20th century historical developments at the level of philosophy, epistemology and progressive thinking. Specifically, sociological theories have been product of intellectual, social, cultural and political climate within which they were developed. For instance, enlightenment was a period of remarkable intellectual development. Some of the important ideas and social thoughts emerged in this period. These ideas and thoughts newly developed replaced the old ones. The period gave birth to the society which can be understood by means of reason, rationality, scientific methods or empirical research. Similarly, in 1789 French revolution created a space when universal rights of man accepted as essential ingredients of social fabric. New ideas such as liberty, equality, nationalism etc. took shape. This influenced structure of society and created new set of ideologies and sociopolitical contestations. Many earlier sociologists were product of such epochal periods and carried forward a tradition of progressive thoughts. Saint Simon was directly influenced by French Revolution, whereas Comte lived in the aftermath of the French Revolution. These earlier sociologists gave thoughts to understand and examine ongoing socio-cultural upheavals and human affairs. For instance, Comte( ref) brings together moral and social philosophy, philosophy of history and epistemology and methods of particular of sciences. Karl Marx and Max Weber, who are also counted as founding fathers of sociology, have used history in their sociological analysis. Marx’s analysis of social change and historical materialism are the examples. Similarly, Weber has found elaborations of his concepts such as rationalisation, modernity, capitalism, secular society, city and ideal types in the womb of history and its analysis. As indicated earlier too, Weber in his work, ‘Economy and Society’, bring out historical explanations to elaborate his propositions of secular theories about the origin and consequences of particular historical phenomenon, from protestant ethic to the modern state.
Many in intellectual in the field of sociology have worked towards developing social history. More specifically, at the turn of 19th and 20th century few historians in German speaking countries and other nations, who dared to deviate the traditional pathways of the discipline, gradually began to appear to contribute to the development of social history. For instance, J. H. Turner explained America’s position in terms of boundaries between civilisation and wilderness. C. A. Beard interpreted and analysed American civil War as a conflict between industrialised north and agrarian south. Similarly, Belgian Henri Pirenne developed a socioeconomic history of Europe. Dutch Scholar John Huizinge dedicated his work to the late middle ages and made a significant contribution to cultural history. Further, after short-while sort of stagnation, in the in the 1920s there was a significant shift towards history. This shift was actually associated with Annals School which was initiated by two renowned professors of university of Strasbourg, Lucien Febvre (1878-1956) and Marc Bloch (1856-1944) who were influenced by Durkheim’s sociology. They advocated for a broad based study of history. Furthermore, as time advanced, sociology too grew in its approach and methodological traditions. Although sociology and history during 20th century diverged a bit, but a complete separation could never occurred. It was primarily for this reason that a new and interesting research orientation namely historical sociology took shape and gradually got a prominent place in the sociological studies. History eventually helped in substantiating sociological analysis of past and its relevant to the present. If one look for its roots in sociological theories, Parsons’ structural-functionalism may be said to be one of the critical motivating factor which bring sociology and history at one place. Further, Robert Neelly Bellah in 1957 published a book titled, ‘Takigawa Religion’, which revealed Japanese equivalence of the protestant ethic. Neil J. Smelser in 1959 in his book, ‘Social change in Industrial Revolution’, attempted to explain nature of social change by examining development of cotton industry during the English industrial revolution. Similarly, Talcott Parsons in 1960s developed his theory of social evolution based on concept of increasing adaptive capacity of the system through functional differentiation in works such as Societies: Evolutionary and Comparative Perspective (1971a) and, ‘The System of Modern Societies’ (1971b). Furthermore, in mid 1970s, Norbert Elias worked on theory of civilisation wherein he elaborately covers historical changes in personality, behaviour and the theory of state formation.
It is said that the golden age of sociology was probably was in the years from 1946 to 1960s, it was when it’s scientific focus seemed candid, its future appeared prospective and its intellectual leaders sure of themselves on what to do and how to do. However, with the change of time, societal needs and overall social discourse since the 1960s globalisation, the emergence of interconnected world, network society, information revolution and cultural studies have transformed the context of sociology. Modernity became subject of past. Sociologist in last couple of decades become much concerned with ‘post’ such as postindustrialisation, post-colonialism, post-positivism, post-modernity or poststructuralism. Various sociologist such as Habermas (Communicate action and public sphere), Foucault (modernity and prison system), Anthony Giddens (Modernity) and others have worked and used historical perspective to elaborate their sociological analysis.
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