History and Sociology in Britain. A Review Article
Craig Calhoun
Journal article · 1987 · Comparative Studies in Society and History
Abstract
Historical sociology flourishes in both Britain and the United States.In Britain, however, nearly all the practitioners call themselves historians.No historical research tradition has been established within sociology.There are no established exemplars like Barrington Moore, Reinhardt Bendix, Immanuel Wallerstein, or Charles Tilly.Norbert Elias stands almost alone among senior figures, and he was very much of an outsider for most of his active careeremployed away from the major Ph.D. programs, his masterwork untranslated for more than forty years. 1 Some comparative, development-oriented sociologists have written historical works of substance, but these remain largely compartmentalized away from the rest of the discipline. 2 A few younger figures are taking up the trade, but the professional establishment shows few marks.The British Sociological Association is far from resembling the American Sociological Association with its new Section on Comparative Historical Sociology ranking as one of the largest.3 I should like to thank Martin Bulmer of the London School of Economics for his comments on an earlier version of this article, which does not cover works published since 1984. 1 See Dennis Smith's recent review article, “Norbert Elias-Established or Outsider?”Sociological Review, 52:2 (1984), 367-89.Smith himself is one of several younger British sociologists originally trained in history.J. A. Banks should also be mentioned as a senior British sociologist who has done noteworthy historical work (see Prosperity and Parenthood: A Study of Family Planning among the Victorian Middle Class (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1954); and Marxist Sociology in Action (Harrisburg, Pa.: Stackpole Books, 1980).2 No doubt the geographic remoteness of these studies has contributed to their compartmentalization.A large number focus on peasants; see, e.g., T. Shanin, The Awkward Class (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1972).3 Except for Elias, none of Abrams's major exemplars of historical sociology is a British sociologist; American sociologists and British historians loom large in his account.Similarly, T. Skocpol, ed., Vision and Method in Historical Sociology (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1984), a very helpful recent survey of major lines of work in the field, finds no British sociologist worthy of attention, though it shows how the work of several British historians and both Continental and American scholars has contributed to the emerging research tradition.