Vision and Method in Historical Sociology
by Theda Skocpol (Editor)
Some of the most important questions of the social sciences in the twentieth century have been posed by scholars working at the intersections of social theory and history viewed on a grand scale. The core essays of this book focus on the careers and contributions of nine of these scholars: Marc Bloch, Karl Polanyi, S. N. Eisenstadt, Reinhard Bendix, Perry Anderson, E. P. Thompson, Charles Tilly, Immanuel Wallerstein, and Barrington Moore, Jr. The essays convey a vivid sense of the vision and values each of these major scholars brings (or bought) to his work and analyze and evaluate the research designs and methods each used in his most important works. The introduction and conclusion discuss the long-running tradition of historically grounded research in sociology, while the conclusion also provides a detailed discussion and comparison of three recurrent strategies for bringing historical evidence and theoretical ideas to bear upon one another. informative, thought-provoking, and unusually practical, the book offers fascinating and relevant reading to sociologists, social historians, historically oriented political economists, and anthropologists - and, indeed, to anyone who wants to learn more about the ideas and methods of some of the best-known scholars in the modern social sciences.

Max Weber's Comparative-Historical Sociology
by Stephen Kalberg
The revival of historical sociology in recent decades has largely neglected the contributions of Max Weber. Yet Weber's writings offer a fundamental resource for analyzing problems of comparative historical development. Stephen Kalberg rejects the view that Weber's historical writings consist of an ambiguous mixture of fragmented ideal types on the one hand and the charting of vast processes of rationalization and bureaucracy on the other. On the contrary, Weber's substantive work offers a coherent and distinctive model for comparative analysis. A reconstruction of Weber's comparative historical method, Kalberg argues, uncovers a sophisticated outlook that addresses problems of agency and structure, multiple causation, and institutional interpretation. Kalberg shows how such a representation of Weber's work casts a direct light upon issues of pressing importance in comparative historical studies today. Weber addresses in a forceful way the whole range of issues confronted by the comparative historical enterprise. Once the full analytical and empirical power of Weber's historical writings becomes clear, Weber's work can be seen to generate procedures and strategies appropriate to the study of present day as well as past social processes. Written in an accessible and engaging fashion, this book will appeal to students and professionals in the areas of sociology, anthropology, and comparative history.
Stephen Kalberg is assistant professor of sociology at Boston University.

Critical and Effective Histories: Foucault's Methods and Historical Sociology
by Mitchell Dean
Critical and Effective Histories contrasts Foucault's methodologies with central currents in social theory and philosophy. It provides a guide to doing historical sociology, and an original position on the condition of social science today.

Introduction to Cultural Historical Sociology (Mellen Studies in Sociology)
by Robert Peter Siemens

Bread and Circuses: Historical Sociology and Political Pluralism
by Paul Veyne, Brian Pearce
From Library Journal
Veyne, a distinguished French scholar and editor of A History of Private Life, Vol. 1: From Pagan Rome to Byzantium (LJ 2/15/87), explores in this monumental and prodigiously learned work acts of patronage--gift giving in the ancient world--from the time of the Greek city-states to the coming of Christianity. Veyne defines individual giving to the community as "euergetism," and he focuses on three types: by wealthy, influential notables; members of the Roman senatorial aristocracy; and the Emperor, who gave the populace bread and circuses. Why did they give? Not for purposes of power--to control the less fortunate through bribery; nor to conceal the exploitation of the proletariat, as Marxists would argue; nor to avoid taxation; nor because of moral guilt. Rather, and here Veyne offers a new non-economic theory of economic history, they gave out of a sense of privelege and duty. Veyne calls for a return to this sense of public responsibility. For larger libraries. --Bennett D. Hill, Georgetown Univ., Washington, D.C.
Copyright 1990 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Historical Sociology (International Library of Sociology) (Hardcover) Routledge; Reprint edition (February, 2003)

Colonialism and Resistance in Belize: Essays in Historical Sociology by O. Nigel Bolland

The Rise of Historical Sociology
by Dennis Smith
In the aftermath of its near-demise by fascism and Stalinism, the resurgence of historical sociology has been one of the most important developments in contemporary sociology and history. Dennis Smith traces the spectacular growth of interest in social history in the West in a much-needed survey that combines lively critique of key works with a framework of interpretation for this intellectual field. He locates the 'second long wave' of historical sociology extending from the post-World War II era into the present and provides a reliable and informative guide to the most influential authors who have contributed to this field in recent times.
Describing this discipline as the study of the past to find out how societies work and change, the author identifies three phases of postwar historical sociology. These periods were shaped by the battle with totalitarianism; the protest movements for student rights, Black Power, an end to the Vietnam War; the Women's Movement; and the fragmentation of the stable bipolar world of the Cold War. Within the context of these sociopolitical eras, Smith discusses the work of the following historical sociologists: Parsons, Smelser, Eisenstadt, Lipset, Marshall, Bendix, Bloch, Elias, Moore, Thompson, Skocpol, Tilly, Anderson, Wallerstein, Braudel, Mann, Runciman, and Giddens.
From the Publisher
A much-needed survey of the spectacular growth of interest in social history in the West

Natural Hierarchies: The Historical Sociology of Race and Class
by Chris Smaje

The Rational Choice Controversy in Historical Sociology (Hardcover) (July 1, 2005)
by Roger V. Gould (Editor)
This collection captures the depth of the debate centered on historical sociology and the role of general theory in the social sciences. The exchange began at a 1990 symposium of the American Sociological Association, when Michael Hechter and Edgar Kiser argued that historical sociologists should search for general causal principles--to which end the pair introduced rational choice theory. This volume reproduces the original paper along with other significant contributions to the debate and Kiser and Hechter's replies to their critics.
From the Inside Flap
This collection captures the excitement and depth of a decade-long debate on what historical sociology is and what it ought to be, leading to larger questions about the role of general theory in the social sciences. The exchange began at a 1990 symposium of the American Sociological Association, when Michael Hechter and Edgar Kiser argued that the historical sociologists, like other social scientists, should search for general causal principles that might explain the origins of national states and other large-scale forms of social organization. Their suggestion? Rational choice theory.
This met with criticism from historical sociologists who employ comparative and narrative analyses to give a context to sociologically significant events. Theoretical statements that disregard time and place were met with suspicion by the critics of rational choice theory.
The original Kiser and Hechter paper is reprinted here, along with the chapters "Have Historical Sociologists Forsaken Theory?"; "Realism, Rational Choice, and Relationality in Social Science"; "Limitations of Rational Choice Theory"; "Initial Conditions, General Laws, Path Dependence, and Explanation in Historical Sociology"; "Narrative, General Theory, and Historically Specific Theory"; plus replies by Kiser and Hechter.
The result is a provocative exchange that calls into question the roles of history and theory in social science, their compatibility, and their epistemological foundations.

Credential Society: A Historical Sociology of Education and Stratification
by Randall Collins

Reflexive Historical Sociology (Routledge Studies in Social and Political Thought, 22) (Library Binding) (February, 2000)
by Arpad Szakolczai
This book reconstructs and brings together the work of a number of social and political theorists in order to gain new insight on the emergence and character of modern Western society. It examines the intersection point of social theory and historical sociology in a new theoretical approach called "reflexive historical sociology".
There is analysis of the works of Max Weber, Michel Foucault, Norbert Elias, Eric Voegelin and a number of others. The book is divided into three parts. Part 1 examines the works of Eric Voegelin, Norbert Elias, Lewis Mumford and Franz Borkenau. Part 2 is concerned with the major conceptual tools such as experience, liminality, process, symbolisation, figuration, order, dramatisation and reflexivity, and themes such as the history of forms of thought, subjectivity, knowledge and closed space and regulated time. Finally the most important insights of the thinkers discussed, concerning the historical processes that led to modernity, are examined.

Historical Sociology of International Relations (November 29, 2001)
by Stephen Hobden (Editor), John M. Hobson (Editor)
"This book offers a summary of what has been called the renaissance of historical sociology and international relations.... Recommended for upper-division undergraduates and above." Choice
Sociology is having an increasing impact on the study of international politics. Covering the range of different approaches and methodologies, leading international scholars examine the extent of this influence. They aim to promote a study of world politics which is sensitive to the impact of social structure and historical context, and will be of interest to scholars and students of sociology and political science as well as International Relations.

Inventing Accuracy: A Historical Sociology of Nuclear Missile Guidance (Inside Technology)
by Donald MacKenzie
Donald MacKenzie follows one line of technology - strategic ballistic missile guidance through a succession of weapons systems to reveal the workings of a world that is neither awesome nor unstoppable. He uncovers the parameters, the pressures, and the politics that make up the complex social construction of an equally complex technology.
Donald MacKenzie is Reader in Sociology at the University of Edinburgh.
Donald MacKenzie holds a Personal Chair in Sociology at the University of Edinburgh. He is the author of Knowing Machines: Essays on Technical Change (MIT Press, 1996) and Inventing Accuracy: A Historical Sociology of Nuclear Missile Guidance (MIT Press, 1990).

Family Life and Illicit Love in Earlier Generations : Essays in Historical Sociology
by Peter Laslett
This is a book about the history of family life in several senses. The author puts forward a thesis about the European family in relation to the conspicuous differences between European economic and social development and that of the rest of the world. He discusses the numbers and functions of servants, the numbers and situation of orphans and the aged, and the difficult question of whether American slaves lived in families at all. There is an extended analysis of the extraordinary turnover in population in England and in Europe in pre-industrial times, and a full discussion of the figures for English illegitimacy since Shakespeare's day. There is also a consideration of the elusive topic of the age of sexual maturity and its variations over time. The book represents some of the results of the first fifteen years of work in the newly instituted subject of historical sociology with particular reference to the family.