Description
Book SynopsisFrench Sociology offers a uniquely comprehensive view of the oldest and still one of the most vibrant national traditions in sociology. Johan Heilbron covers the development of sociology in France from its beginnings in the early nineteenth century through the discipline's expansion in the late twentieth century, tracing the careers of figures from Auguste Comte to Pierre Bourdieu. Presenting fresh interpretations of how renowned thinkers such as Émile Durkheim and his collaborators defined the contours and content of the discipline and contributed to intellectual renewals in a wide range of other human sciences, Heilbron's sophisticated book is both an innovative sociological study and a major reference work in the history of the social sciences.
Heilbron recounts the halting process by which sociology evolved from a new and improbable science into a legitimate academic discipline. Having entered the academic field at the end of the nineteenth century, sociology develo
Trade Review
No history of the discipline has ever articulated so finely the evolution of its institutions, an interpretation of the trajectories of its central actors, and the presentation of its main theoretical, methodological, and empirical results.
* Contemporary Sociology *
Reading Heilbron’s study affords an unusual degree of intellectual satisfaction. It is thoroughly researched, up-to-date with the latest scholarship, and, although Bourdieusian in method, appropriately detached and non-partisan in its intellectual judgments. It tells a coherent overall story, continuing the author’s fine The Rise of Social Theory, of the consolidation and subsequent reconsolidations of Comte’s projected discipline across two centuries and tells that story in a sequence of stages whose periodization is well-motivated by reference to the distinctive dynamics of each.
* Theory and Society *
French Sociology is a striking illustration of the relevance of an historical sociological approach to the social sciences that succeeds in articulating intellectual history and sociology of science. One can only hope that it will inspire other works of the same type.
* Revue d'histoire des sciences humaines *
Heilbron paints a deep sharp picture that allows new insights into the complex genealogies and institutional contexts of French sociology. His recapitulation of about two centuries of () French social science impressively demonstrates the usefulness and necessity of a historiography that consciously starts off from national scientific traditions.
* Soziopolis *
With French Sociology Johan Heilbron - European sociologist if ever there is one – provides further evidence of his ability to use in his work on the history of sociology, not only the whole range of research techniques, but also the most demanding conceptual tools of the discipline he has taken as his object of study.
* Revue d'histoire des sciences humaines *
Johan Heilbron’s erudite history of French sociology is essential reading.
* Society *
Heilbron’s book is a well-documented journey of more than 150 years of French sociology. Having been able to dissect the main developments in a limited number of pages is an accomplishment. The choice not to limit the analysis to authors and their theories, but to consider dominant institutions, media of publication, fluctuations in student numbers as well as the overall context, offers an original perspective.
* Revue européenne des sciences sociales *
An empirically very rich and at the same time concise book.
* Sociologie Magazine *
For every historian of sociology this is an important, compulsory reference work.
* H-Soz-Kult *
Vivid, innovative, and insightful.... Reading Heilbron's study affords an unusual degree of intellectual satisfaction.
* THEORY AND SOCIETY *
Table of ContentsIntroductionCHAPTER 1. The Establishment of Organized Social Science
The Politics of Social Science
Moral Science in Government Service
The Invasion of the Positive Sciences
Republicanism, Science, and the Research University
Disciplinary Frontiers
The Tripartite Division of French Social Science
The Literary OppositionCHAPTER 2. An Improbable Science
Reconceptualizing Social Science
Comte and the Second Scientific Revolution
The British Evolution of Sociology
The Return of Sociology in France
Positivist Politics
Social Reform and Social ResearchCHAPTER 3. Sociology and Other Disciplines in the Making
The Two-Front Struggle of the Professoriate
University Pioneers
An Emerging Subfield
From Psychology to Sociology
Organizing a Science of Synthesis
The Durkheimian Program
Antagonistic Competition
The Année sociologique
Defining a Specialty of GeneralistsCHAPTER 4. The Metamorphoses of Durkheimian Scholarship
The Contours of Sociology
The End of a Collective Enterprise
Conflicting Interpretations
To Profess or to Inquire?
Recruitment Patterns
Social Images of Sociology
The Centre de documentation sociale
The Durkheimian LegacyCHAPTER 5. Pioneers by Default?
Between Political Commitment and Policy Expertise
Sociology at the Sorbonne
Fieldwork as Vocation?
Research Groups
No Man's Land
Reconfiguring the Social SciencesCHAPTER 6. Cycles of Expansion and Field Transformations
The Structuralist Boom and After
Research Policy and the Research Sector
Teaching Sociology
Publishing Sociology
Rhetoric and Reality of Professionalization
ConclusionCHAPTER 7. Intellectual Styles and the Dynamics of Research Groups
Beyond the Sociology of Work
Social Action and Public Sociology
Organizational Analysis and Policy Sociology
The Methodological Imperative
Reflexive SociologyConclusionEpilogue: What Is French about Sociology in France?Notes
Index
