**3. Concerning distancing and approximation**

To fully understand the origin of today's opinions on the question of the relationship between sociology and history, we must recall the history of this complex problem. As the format of the professional essay does not permit deeper exploration of the topic we shall confine ourselves to outlining developments in broad strokes.

not only on "relics", i.e. existing available traces, artefacts and documents, but also on "traditions". Goldthorpe thus ignores cultural history such as the history of mentalities, ways of thinking, everydayness and collective memory. Part of the past is part of the present and touches the current - either in its orientation, or (in institutions and structures) as a conditioning framework. Inspired by previous discussions Mikl-Horke [ibid.: 22] attempted to define certain conditions which historical sociology should respect in its observations. These include: understanding theory as means and not ends; respectful but not uncritical treatment of historical scientific findings; if possible, working with sources; interpretive caution regarding general, structural factors; and understanding the present as something

Even in the early 1980s Philip Abrams [1982: 300] optimistically claimed that during the previous two decades works had been published of such theoretical self-confidence that the idea that sociology had to be theoretical and history descriptive was clearly an anachronism; the deeper the theoretical dimension of historical science became, the more obvious it was that the assumption of professional historians, excluding theory from their field, was unjustifiable. However, although in recent years some rapprochement has occurred between history and sociology, mainly thanks to historical sociology, it is not possible to overlook the fact that communication and cooperation between the two disciplines is still very complicated and not deepening much. Sociologists have their own views about history, and historians make their way with some basic sociological concepts. The significance of Goldthorp's paper [1991] lies in the discussion that it provoked, bringing the relationship between the two disciplines to the fore. While not denying that the approach to history found among historical sociologists differs in many respects from that of historians, it may not be inferred that sociology should be a theoretical discipline while

Though Goldthorp's effort to enforce a sharp dividing line between history and sociology is very problematic, his critique of historical sociology was justified to some extent. Among other things, the lesson can be drawn that sociology cannot address history only with its own perspectives and ignore in so doing the methodological procedures and conventions characteristic of the historical science. It would be a mistake for historical sociologists to be uninterested in methodological discussions on the interpretation of historical sources, using historical literature only as a "stone-quarry" for raw materials from which to create farreaching constructions. Besides, it must be remembered that even today historical sociology is exposed to the "temptation" to create concepts that could be dangerously close to what Karl R. Popper [2000] once disparagingly described as historicism (the assumption that historical development has a given, binding character due to the nature of discernible universal laws of history by which the future may be anticipated). It is obvious that approaching history requires theory; therefore the question is not "theory - yes or no", but

To fully understand the origin of today's opinions on the question of the relationship between sociology and history, we must recall the history of this complex problem. As the format of the professional essay does not permit deeper exploration of the topic we shall

the task of history is to focus on the gathering of facts and their description.

that is historically based.

the adequacy of such theories.

**3. Concerning distancing and approximation** 

confine ourselves to outlining developments in broad strokes.

Support for this can be found especially in the work of Peter Burke [1989: 12-34], who delves back to the 18th century to recall the time in which social theorists such as Charles-Louis Montesquieu (1689-1755), Adam Ferguson (1723-1816) and John Millar (1753-1801) made important contributions both to the field of history and the history of pre-sociological thinking. At that time it was not problematic for political history, social history and presociological thinking to coexist and intertwine, as is illustrated by the works of British historian Edward Gibbon (1737-1794) and French historian Jules Michelet (1798-1874).

However, there have been distinct divisions since the mid-19th century when the approach advocated by the German historian Leopold von Ranke (1795-1886) began to dominate. In his view historical science should be based on the systematic and critical research of sources whose aim was to show the past as it "actually was" (*zu zeigen, wie es eigentlich gewesen*) [Wiersing 2007: 369]. Ranke's historiography is consequently oriented towards political history, which could be studied on the basis of official documents. This tendency was additionally supported by the professionalization of history, as the first scientific institutes and periodicals arose. Meanwhile governments financially supported the writing of history that could serve as a tool of propaganda and state education of citizens. In this situation the works of social and cultural historians began to be viewed as disorganized, insufficiently scientific and incompatible with new professional standards.

Amongst others, this was the fate of Jacob Christoph Burckhardt (1818-1897), whose work *The Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy* (1860) did not meet with success at the time of its creation and has been recognized only subsequently as a large and significant work. A certain exception occurred in France with the historian (and teacher of Émile Durkheim) Numa Denis Fustel de Coulanges (1830-1889), whose book about the ancient village *La Cité antique* (1864) won respect even though it combined historical and sociological perspectives. By contrast in Germany the historian Karl Lamprecht ran into harsh criticism and misunderstanding (1856-1915), when, against the prevailing individualism and the belief that great men make history (Heinrich von Treitschke), he attempted to construct a social, economic and cultural history [Wiersing 2007: 474 - 477].

Since the 19th century, many historians have recoiled from sociology because it seems too abstract, simplifying and unable to catch the uniqueness of particular events. On the theoretical and methodological level this problem was taken up by German philosophers Wilhelm Dilthey (1833-1911), Wilhelm Windelband (1848-1915) and others [Käsler 1978: 142- 162]. Dilthey emphasised the difference between the natural sciences, which strive to explain (*erklären*) "from outside" and humanistic sciences (*Geisteswissenschaften*), whose objective is "internal" understanding (*verstehen*).

Windelband described natural sciences as "nomothetic", aimed at the discovery of general laws, and the humanities as "idiographic", tasked with describing single, unique events. Many sociologists have used this boundary between idiographic and nomothetic sciences to explain the difference between history, whose thinking is oriented particularly and descriptively, and sociology, whose task is to obtain generalizations. For history, sociology thus becomes a pseudoscience using methods suitable for enquiry into nature rather than human history.

At the end of the 19th century this sifting of ideas was spurred on by the controversies in economics known as *Methodenstreit* (a dispute over methods) between the Austrian School

History and Sociology: What is Historical Sociology? 409

this its distance from history. Historical sciences ceased to be considered relevant in sociology and their findings were no longer accepted as "raw material" for sociological

However, in the 1920s there was significant shift toward history, associated with the start of the *Annales* school (from the magazine *Annales d'histoire écnonomique et sociale*)1, which was initiated by two professors at the University of Strasbourg, Lucien Febvre (1878-1956) and Marc Bloch (1886-1944). They rejected the traditional dominance of political history and attempted to found a broad-based study of history. Taking inspiration from neighbouring disciplines; they let themselves be influenced by Durkheim's sociology, and especially by the emerging structuralism. While in the period before World War II *Annales* represented only a marginal stream, after 1945 it became a very important and influential school, in whose second-generational development Febvre's scholar Fernad Braudel participated (author of the monumental work *La méditerranée et le monde méditerranéen à l'epoque de Philippe II*, published in 1949), and whose third generation is already a very diverse group of historians (representing the so-called *nouvelle history / new history*, characterised by an unusual interest in the history of everydayness), among whom are such names as Georges Duby, Jacques le Goff, Emmanuel Le Roy Ladurie, Phillippe Ariès, Mona Ozouf, François

Although sociology and history during the 20th century diverged, their complete separation never occurred because of the research orientation which acquired the general name "historical sociology" (in American literature also "historical comparative sociology"). Contemporary authors who endorse it (such as Dennis Smith [2006: 191]), consider it a discipline with predecessors (Hume, Smith, Ferguson, Montesquieu, Tocqueville), which found continuation in the work of the founders of sociological thought (Marx, Weber, Durkheim). German author Rainer Schützeichel includes the so-called "Weimar School" (Alfred Weber, Wener Sombart, Alfred von Martin, Eduard Heimann, Franz Oppenheimer, Emil Lederer, Karl Polanyi, Hans Freyer, Adolf Löwe) from the period between two world wars. A further figure would be Karl Mannheim, who applied the

In the United States Robert K. Merton, inspired by Max Weber, examined in *Science, Technology and Society in Seventeenth Century England* (1938 [1970]) the influence of English Puritanism on the development of natural sciences. Pitirim A. Sorokin published between 1937-1941 *Social and Cultural Dynamics*; in 1941 George C. Homans published the study *English Villagers of the Thirteenth Century*. All these were significant works, whose authors

In the U.S. at that time, Reinhard Bendix [1960] championed Max Weber and his historicalsociological perspective. The most famous of Bendix's works is *Nation-Building and Citizenship* [1996 (1964)], in which he focussed on the historical processes of the development of relations between the state and its citizens in nation-building. He examined this issue through the examples of Western Europe, Russia, Japan, and India. Bendix concludes that different types of societies may respond to similar problems differently. Each national

1 The magazine was launched in the year 1929, later it was renamed and since 1994 it is published under

analysis.

Furet, and others.

historical perspective to the sociology of knowledge.

swam against the dominant stream in American sociology.

the new name *Annales, histoire, sciences sociale*.

(Carl Menger) and the German historical school (Wilhelm Roscher, Gustav Schmoller, but also for instance Max Weber and Werner Sombart). This dispute took place on three levels and concerned the use of deductive and inductive methods, exact and empirical laws, methodological individualism and collectivism [Loužek 2001].

Sociology in the 19th and in the beginning of 20th century was interested not only in the present but in the past. The historical dimension was reflected in this era by Auguste Comte, Herbert Spencer, Karl Marx, Émile Durkheim, Max Weber, Georg Simmel, Vilfredo Pareto and others, being an integral component of their sociological concepts (in the case of Weber the link to the history is the strongest; one could say that his sociology is subordinated to history). Among many sociologists of that period a belief in the theory of progress still predominated and with it the concept that history was not just some random sequence of events, but could reveal the laws of historical development (Karl R. Popper would later criticize this as "historicism"). The ambitions of many sociological conceptions of history were substantial and often went hand in hand with dismissive attitudes towards conventional history, which seemed adorned with unnecessary details and improperly organised. If history was granted some meaning, it was perhaps only as a source of material for comparative sociological studies [Burke 1989: 19].

While very few historians in German-speaking countries at the turn of the 19th and 20th century dared to deviate from Ranke's framework (Karl Lamprecht's attempt did not meet with understanding), in other countries historians gradually began to appear who contributed to the development of social history.

In the United States an important role was played by Frederick Jackson Turner (1861-1932), who tried to explain America's unique position in terms of boundaries not between states, but between "civilization" and "wilderness". James Harvey Robinson (1863-1936) stressed social, scientific and intellectual development against political history. Charles Austin Beard (1874-1948) interpreted (influenced by Marx) the American Civil War as a conflict between industrialized north and agrarian south.

In France a new historical school was initiated by Simiand François (1873-1935), who criticized the reduction of history to historical events and great personalities. Belgian Henri Pirenne (1862-1936) developed a social and economic history of Europe. The works of Dutch scholar Johan Huizinga (1872-1945), dedicated to the late Middle Ages, made a significant contribution to cultural history.

The speculative nature of social development theories that emerged in the second half of 19 th and early 20th century undoubtedly greatly influenced the fact that in the further development of sociological thought there was a noticeable diversion from the study of long-term social dynamics (though not completely; there were exceptions, such as Pitirim A. Sorokin).

In sociology what pervaded was the tendency to form models on current states and focus on the analysis of data evidencing the present (Norbert Elias later identified this tendency as the "retreat of sociology to the present "). The main source of such data had been official statistics, but now, particularly in the United States, sociologists began to develop their own methods of empirical research with gusto (Chicago School, Gallup, Lazarsfeld, and many others). Amidst the growing professionalization of sociology its confidence grew and with

(Carl Menger) and the German historical school (Wilhelm Roscher, Gustav Schmoller, but also for instance Max Weber and Werner Sombart). This dispute took place on three levels and concerned the use of deductive and inductive methods, exact and empirical laws,

Sociology in the 19th and in the beginning of 20th century was interested not only in the present but in the past. The historical dimension was reflected in this era by Auguste Comte, Herbert Spencer, Karl Marx, Émile Durkheim, Max Weber, Georg Simmel, Vilfredo Pareto and others, being an integral component of their sociological concepts (in the case of Weber the link to the history is the strongest; one could say that his sociology is subordinated to history). Among many sociologists of that period a belief in the theory of progress still predominated and with it the concept that history was not just some random sequence of events, but could reveal the laws of historical development (Karl R. Popper would later criticize this as "historicism"). The ambitions of many sociological conceptions of history were substantial and often went hand in hand with dismissive attitudes towards conventional history, which seemed adorned with unnecessary details and improperly organised. If history was granted some meaning, it was perhaps only as a source of material

While very few historians in German-speaking countries at the turn of the 19th and 20th century dared to deviate from Ranke's framework (Karl Lamprecht's attempt did not meet with understanding), in other countries historians gradually began to appear who

In the United States an important role was played by Frederick Jackson Turner (1861-1932), who tried to explain America's unique position in terms of boundaries not between states, but between "civilization" and "wilderness". James Harvey Robinson (1863-1936) stressed social, scientific and intellectual development against political history. Charles Austin Beard (1874-1948) interpreted (influenced by Marx) the American Civil War as a conflict between

In France a new historical school was initiated by Simiand François (1873-1935), who criticized the reduction of history to historical events and great personalities. Belgian Henri Pirenne (1862-1936) developed a social and economic history of Europe. The works of Dutch scholar Johan Huizinga (1872-1945), dedicated to the late Middle Ages, made a significant

The speculative nature of social development theories that emerged in the second half of 19 th and early 20th century undoubtedly greatly influenced the fact that in the further development of sociological thought there was a noticeable diversion from the study of long-term social dynamics (though not completely; there were exceptions, such as Pitirim A.

In sociology what pervaded was the tendency to form models on current states and focus on the analysis of data evidencing the present (Norbert Elias later identified this tendency as the "retreat of sociology to the present "). The main source of such data had been official statistics, but now, particularly in the United States, sociologists began to develop their own methods of empirical research with gusto (Chicago School, Gallup, Lazarsfeld, and many others). Amidst the growing professionalization of sociology its confidence grew and with

methodological individualism and collectivism [Loužek 2001].

for comparative sociological studies [Burke 1989: 19].

contributed to the development of social history.

industrialized north and agrarian south.

contribution to cultural history.

Sorokin).

this its distance from history. Historical sciences ceased to be considered relevant in sociology and their findings were no longer accepted as "raw material" for sociological analysis.

However, in the 1920s there was significant shift toward history, associated with the start of the *Annales* school (from the magazine *Annales d'histoire écnonomique et sociale*)1, which was initiated by two professors at the University of Strasbourg, Lucien Febvre (1878-1956) and Marc Bloch (1886-1944). They rejected the traditional dominance of political history and attempted to found a broad-based study of history. Taking inspiration from neighbouring disciplines; they let themselves be influenced by Durkheim's sociology, and especially by the emerging structuralism. While in the period before World War II *Annales* represented only a marginal stream, after 1945 it became a very important and influential school, in whose second-generational development Febvre's scholar Fernad Braudel participated (author of the monumental work *La méditerranée et le monde méditerranéen à l'epoque de Philippe II*, published in 1949), and whose third generation is already a very diverse group of historians (representing the so-called *nouvelle history / new history*, characterised by an unusual interest in the history of everydayness), among whom are such names as Georges Duby, Jacques le Goff, Emmanuel Le Roy Ladurie, Phillippe Ariès, Mona Ozouf, François Furet, and others.

Although sociology and history during the 20th century diverged, their complete separation never occurred because of the research orientation which acquired the general name "historical sociology" (in American literature also "historical comparative sociology"). Contemporary authors who endorse it (such as Dennis Smith [2006: 191]), consider it a discipline with predecessors (Hume, Smith, Ferguson, Montesquieu, Tocqueville), which found continuation in the work of the founders of sociological thought (Marx, Weber, Durkheim). German author Rainer Schützeichel includes the so-called "Weimar School" (Alfred Weber, Wener Sombart, Alfred von Martin, Eduard Heimann, Franz Oppenheimer, Emil Lederer, Karl Polanyi, Hans Freyer, Adolf Löwe) from the period between two world wars. A further figure would be Karl Mannheim, who applied the historical perspective to the sociology of knowledge.

In the United States Robert K. Merton, inspired by Max Weber, examined in *Science, Technology and Society in Seventeenth Century England* (1938 [1970]) the influence of English Puritanism on the development of natural sciences. Pitirim A. Sorokin published between 1937-1941 *Social and Cultural Dynamics*; in 1941 George C. Homans published the study *English Villagers of the Thirteenth Century*. All these were significant works, whose authors swam against the dominant stream in American sociology.

In the U.S. at that time, Reinhard Bendix [1960] championed Max Weber and his historicalsociological perspective. The most famous of Bendix's works is *Nation-Building and Citizenship* [1996 (1964)], in which he focussed on the historical processes of the development of relations between the state and its citizens in nation-building. He examined this issue through the examples of Western Europe, Russia, Japan, and India. Bendix concludes that different types of societies may respond to similar problems differently. Each national

<sup>1</sup> The magazine was launched in the year 1929, later it was renamed and since 1994 it is published under the new name *Annales, histoire, sciences sociale*.

History and Sociology: What is Historical Sociology? 411

In his analysis Moore distinguished three historical paths leading to modern society. The first is bourgeois revolution (the case of England, France, the United States), the second is conservative revolution (Prussia, Japan), the third peasant revolution (Russia, China). Moore points out that the course and outcome of these revolutions anticipates the further development of these countries, heading either towards democracy (revolution in England in the 17th century, the French Revolution in 1789 and the American Civil War from 1860 to 1866), or to fascism (revolution "from above" in Germany and Japan); or to a communist dictatorship ("peasant" revolutions in Russia in 1917 and in China in 1948-1949). Although Barrington Moore was a type of scholar-solitaire, who participated little in academic life, his works became a very important source of inspiration for the next generation of researchers. Notable among Moore's students are Ch. Tilly and T. Skocpol, representing the so-called

Theda Skocpol (\*1947), American political scientist and sociologist, published her most famous work *States and Social Revolutions* in 1979. She understands social revolution as a rapid basic transformation of society and class structure, accompanied by and largely carried out through a class revolt from below [Skocpol 1979: 33]. She claims that revolution arose as an unintended result of multiple conflicts shaped by a complex of socio-economic and international conditions. In her work, Skocpol focuses on three specific cases: the French Revolution in 1789; the Russian Revolution in 1917 and the Chinese Revolution in 1949, whose completion was preceded by a long civil war. Despite the considerable diversity of these revolutions, according to the author they had features in common. Revolutions occur in countries that are disadvantaged in some way, whose ruling structure is internally

All three countries, Skocpol argues, were characterized by the backwardness of the agrarian sector, coupled with the inability to move to more productive farming. In all three cases there was widespread rebellion in the lower classes, especially among the peasantry. Furthermore the old regime had to face sudden changes in neighbouring states that wielded greater economic and military power and all three countries went through a series of military defeats shortly before their revolutions. Skocpol attributed great significance to mutual relations between states, and international conditions, thus drifting from the ideas about the process of revolutions formulated by her teacher Barrington Moore, while also contributing to the further development of historical comparative sociology (see also

The most prominent of Moore's pupils was Charles Tilly (1929-2008), in whose literary inheritance one can find more than 50 books. Tilly was expert in three related areas. He was engaged in the analysis of social movements, protests and violent behaviour (the lion's share of his works), he developed a theory of historical sociology and was also the author of comparative historical overviews. At the very beginning of his professional career was publication of the book *Vendée* [1973 (1964)], which dealt with the rebellion in West France seaside area in 1793, interpreted as a desperate and doomed attempt by a broad rural strata to defeat an urban revolution. Tilly, like Moore and Skocpol, spoke to the problems of revolutions [1978]. For Tilly, collective forced action results from a combination of four factors, including common group interests, an organization with specific organizational structure, mobilization of group resources and opportunity associated with specific

inconsistent and fails to respond effectively to existing challenges.

"new historical sociology" [Spohn 2005].

[Skocpol 1985]).

situational constellations ripe for exploitation.

culture is a result of conflicts from the past, shaped by the elites who have alternated leadership.

Another credit for the approximation of sociology and history can be given to researchers starting from Parsons' structural functionalism. In 1957 [1969] Robert Neelly Bellah published a book called *Tokugawa Religion*, attempting to reveal the Japanese equivalent of the Protestant Ethic. Neil Smelser in his book *Social Change in the Industrial Revolution* [1959] focused on the problem of social change based on the example of the development of cotton industry during the English industrial revolution. Interest in the historical perspective can also be found in the writing of Seymour Martin Lipset (*The First New Nation* [1963]). In the 60's Talcott Parsons developed the theory of social evolution based on the concept of the increasing adaptive capacity of the system through functional differentiation, in publications such as *Societies: Evolutionary and Comparative Perspective* [1971a (1966)]) and *The System of Modern Societies* [1971b].

Only in the mid-1970s was wide recognition garnered by the two-volume work *Über den Prozeß der Zivilisation* [1976], created by Norbert Elias in the period before the World War II. The author presents the findings of his "psychogenetic" and "sociogenetic" investigation which resulted in two related theories: the theory of civilization, covering historical changes in personality and behaviour (Part 1), and the theory of state formation (Part 2). Subsequently others of Elias' books were pubished [1983, 2006], including a rich secondary literature.

From the perspective of historical sociology, Elias' approaches are said to be complemented by the studies of Michel Foucault focused on historical changes of power and knowledge and the relationship between them [1999, 2000]. The "German Foucault" is sometimes said to be historian Reinhart Koselleck, who deals with the history of concepts - *Begriffsgeschichte* [2006] and who as editor oversaw the creation of the monumental eight-volume work *Geschichtliche Grundbegriffe* [1972-1997]. British historian Peter Burke [1989, 2007] meanwhile, operates on the border between the history of culture and sociology of knowledge. We may also assign many of the works of Ernest Gellner to this field, especially those focused on issues of nationalism [1993, 2002] and general questions of the structure of human history (*Plough, Sword and Book* [2001]). Books by these authors have an interdisciplinary character and show how- by simply stepping over narrow disciplinary boundaries – we can obtain fresh knowledge. Such interdisciplinary approaches are now becoming a hallmark of contemporary historical sociology.
