Description
Book Synopsis* A new, fully updated edition of a now classic text. * The text has been completely revised to take into account developments of the past 14 years, since History and Social Theory was first published. * Topics which have been added and that are now treated in depth include globalization, postcolonialism and social capital.
Trade Review“This remains an excellent and (still) timely call for greater cross-fertilization between two disciplines that approach the same subject from different but complementary angles. Alongside the quality of the writing and the argument this book provides many useful references on the 'classical' works that have shaped both disciplines. For the relative newcomer as for the specialist this is a reminder of how much we can glean not just from social theory and history today, but also from the social theorists and historians who preceded us.”
History “A work of great clarity and wide scope, History and Social Theory offers the reader quick access to the key issues in the field with pithy and focused discussions of its problems, claims, contentions, and work yet to be done.”
Herman Lebovics, SUNY Stony Brook
“This is a really excellent book and should be prescribed reading for any serious student of history or social theory at any teaching level. It should also attract large numbers of admiring general readers.”
Robert W. Scibner, Clare College, Cambridge
Table of Contents
- Preface
- 1 THEORISTS AND HISTORIANS
- A Dialogue of the Deaf
- The Differentiation of History and Theory
- The Dismissal of the Past
- The Rise of Social History
- The Convergence of Theory and History
- 2 MODELS AND METHODS
- Comparisons
- Models
- Quantitative Methods
- The Social Microscope
- 3 CENTRAL CONCEPTS
- Roles and Performances
- Sex and Gender
- Family and Kinship
- Communities and Identities
- Class and Status
- Social Mobility and Social Distinction
- Consumption and Exchange
- Social and Cultural Capital
- Patrons and Clients
- Power and the Public Sphere
- Centres and Peripheries
- Hegemony and Resistance
- Social Protest and Social Movements
- Mentalities, Ideologies, Discourses
- Communication and Reception
- Postcolonialism and Cultural Hybridity
- Orality and Textuality
- Memory and Myth
- 4 CENTRAL PROBLEMS
- Rationality versus Relativism
- Concepts of Culture
- Consensus versus Conflict
- Facts versus Fictions
- Structures versus Agents
- Functionalism
- The Example of Venice
- Structuralism
- The Return of the Actor
- 5 SOCIAL THEORY AND SOCIAL CHANGE
- Spencer's Model
- Marx's Model
- A Third Way?
- Essays in Synthesis
- Patterns of Population
- Patterns of Culture
- Encounters
- The Importance of Events
- Generations
- 6 POSTMODERNITY AND POSTMODERNISM
- Destabilization
- Cultural Constructions
- Decentering
- Beyond Eurocentrism?
- Globalization
- To Conclude
- Bibliography
- Index
