`The overall conception of the volume is absolutely splendid, and the editors skilfully place the material in the context of disciplinary and post-disciplinary developments in sociology. This is a major contribution to the field, as well as a comprehensive and reliable guide to its main components′ - William Outhwaite, Professor of Sociology, School of European Studies, University of Sussex `It is hard to think of anything that has been left out in this masterly survey of contemporary historical sociology. The editors have done a superb job in the selection of both themes and contributors. We now at last have an up-to-date book to assign in our graduate courses on comparative historical sociology. There′s really nothing else like it out there.... The editors′ introduction is one of the best things I have read on how the field developed, and the problems it has encountered′ - Krishan Kumar, William R Kenan, Jr Professor of Sociology, University of Virginia ′The range of topics covered and the number of distinguished scholars who have contributed to the handbook is impressive, with leading figures such as Bryan S Turner, John R Hall, Gianfranco Poggi and Craig Calhoun among the contributors to a book that covers areas as diverse as post-colonial historiography and the historical sociology of the city... the handbook fills a void within the sizable literature on historical sociology and undoubtedly will be a useful addition to graduate reading lists′ - The British Journal of Sociology What is important in historical sociology? What are the main routes of development in the subject? This Handbook consists of 26 chapters on historical sociology. It is divided into three parts. Part One is devoted to Foundations and covers Marx, Weber, evolutionary and functionalist approaches, the Annales School, Elias, Nelson and Eisenstadt. Part Two moves on to consider major approaches, such as modernization approaches, late Marxist approaches, historical geography, institutional approaches, cultural history, intellectual history, postcolonial and genealogical approaches. The third part is devoted to the major substantive themes in historical sociology ranging from state formation, nationalism, social movements, classes, patriarchy, architecture, religion and moral regulation to problems of periodization and East-West divisions. Each part includes an introduction that summarizes and contextualizes chapters. A general introduction to the volume outlines the current situation of historical sociology after the cultural turn in the social sciences. It argues that historical sociology is deeply divided between explanatory `sociological′ approaches and more empirical and interpretative `historical′ approaches. Systematic and informative the book offers readers the most complete and authoritative guide to historical sociology.

Sociology began as a historical discipline, created by Marx, Weber and others, to explain the emergence and consequences of rational, capitalist society. Today, the best historical sociology combines precision in theory-construction with the careful selection of appropriate methodologies to address ongoing debates across a range of subfields. This innovative book explores what sociologists gain by treating temporality seriously, what we learn from placing social relations and events in historical context. In a series of chapters, readers will see how historical sociologists have addressed the origins of capitalism, revolutions and social movements, empires and states, inequality, gender and culture. The goal is not to present a comprehensive history of historical sociology; rather, readers will encounter analyses of exemplary works and see how authors engaged past debates and their contemporaries in sociology, history and other disciplines to advance our understanding of how societies are created and remade across time. This illuminating book is designed for use in graduate and advanced undergraduate courses as an introduction to historical sociology and as a guide to employing historical analysis across the discipline.

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.

This book provides a comprehensive overview of the themes that make up the field of Historical Sociology. At its centre is the human individual as related to social and historical development. The key question it raises is who or what is responsible for the process of human history: society or the individual?

This book argues that history and sociology share the same vital preoccupation: the desire to unravel the puzzle of human agency. How do large-scale social transformations occur, and what is the role of the individual in them? Phil Abrams devotes three chapters to the development of industrialism and scrutinizes, in that connection, the theories of Marx, Weber, and Durkheim. Subsequent chapters consider Talcott Parsons and the debate on "convergence"; the formation of "states"; the idea of the "event" as a legitimate concern of history and sociology; individuals and sociological generations; deviancy and revolution; and a final chapter on the limits of historical sociology.

Bringing together historical sociologists from Sociology and International Relations, this collection lays out the international, transnational, and global dimensions of social change. It reveals the shortcomings of existing scholarship and argues for a deepening of the 'third wave' of historical sociology through a concerted treatment of transnational and global dynamics as they unfold in and through time. The volume combines theoretical interventions with in-depth case studies. Each chapter moves beyond binaries of 'internalism' and 'externalism,' offering a relational approach to a particular thematic: the rise of the West, the colonial construction of sexuality, the imperial origins of state formation, the global origins of modern economic theory, the international features of revolutionary struggles, and more. By bringing this sensibility to bear on a wide range of issue-areas, the volume lays out the promise of a truly global historical sociology.

The Credential Society is a classic on the role of higher education in American society and an essential text for understanding the reproduction of inequality. Controversial at the time, Randall Collins’s claim that the expansion of American education has not increased social mobility, but rather created a cycle of credential inflation, has proven remarkably prescient. Collins shows how credential inflation stymies mass education’s promises of upward mobility. An unacknowledged spiral of the rising production of credentials and job requirements was brought about by the expansion of high school and then undergraduate education, with consequences including grade inflation, rising educational costs, and misleading job promises dangled by for-profit schools. Collins examines medicine, law, and engineering to show the ways in which credentialing closed these high-status professions to new arrivals. In an era marked by the devaluation of high school diplomas, outcry about the value of expensive undergraduate degrees, and the proliferation of new professional degrees like the MBA, The Credential Society has more than stood the test of time. In a new preface, Collins discusses recent developments, debunks claims that credentialization is driven by technological change, and points to alternative pathways for the future of education.

International relations theorists are increasingly turning to historical sociology as a means both of broadening and refining their discipline, and critiquing mainstream thinking. Nevertheless, there is still only a rudimentary understanding of what historical sociology is and what it can offer the subject. This book acts as a manifesto for historical sociology, considering a range of issues, including accounts of the major variants of historical sociology; how they can be applied to international relations; why international relations theorists should engage with these approaches; and how historical sociological insight can enhance and reconfigure the study of international relations. In addition to describing the seven major approaches - neo-Weberianism, constructivisim, critical historical materialism, critical theory, postmodernism, structural realism and World Systems theory - the volume s introductory and concluding chapters set out in detail an approach and research agenda that revolve around what the editors call world sociology .

In the aftermath of its near-demise by fascism and Stalinism, the resurgence of historical sociology has been an important development in contemporary sociology and history. This book traces the growth of interest in social history in the West in a survey that combines critique of key works with a framework of interpretation for this field.

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 book examines the most important insights of the thinkers discussed, concerning the historical processes that led to modernity.