Description
Book SynopsisThis book provides a comprehensive overview of the range of themes which make up the field of Historical Sociology. Jiří Šubrt systematically discusses the main problems of societal development, long term process and changes in the key areas of social life. These include not only temporalized sociology, evolutionary theory, civilizational analysis, societal systems, structures and functions, but also modernization and revolution, risk, crisis, catastrophe and collapse, wars, conflicts and violence, nations, nationalism and collective memory. This study does not ignore the fundamental dichotomy underlying the discipline, which is between individualism and holism.
At the heart of this book lies the human individual as related to social and historical development. The key question is who or what is responsible for the process of human history: society or the individual? The author concludes by offering an approach which may help in resolving this dilemma.
Trade ReviewThe author surveys themes in the field of historical sociology, in terms of the leading figures in the field, the relationship between history and sociology, and how sociology views the human individual in society and history. He considers the interrelationship between sociology and historical science and the perspective historical sociology can offer on humans, society, and history; different theories of social change, including crises, collapses, and disasters; the significance, topicality, and inspirational influence of sociological thinkers like Auguste Comte, Herbert Spencer, Karl Marx, Max Weber, Émile Durkheim, and Maurice Halbwachs; concepts related to social systems, structures, and functions, including structural functionalism, stratification and conflict theory, structuralism and poststructuralism, systems theory, and world-systems theory; ideas about culture and civilization, including the work of Norbert Elias, Jaroslav Krejci, and Shmuel N. Eisenstadt; the problems of modernization, including the paths to modern society, nationalism, totalitarianism, wars and violence, the theory of modernization, the first and second modernities, and the transformations of contemporary societies; and the sociological perspective on the human individual in society and history, with an emphasis on major historical individuals. -- Annotation ©2017 * (protoview.com) *
Table of ContentsPart 1: The Perspective of Historical Sociology The Path to Historical Sociology History and Sociology Theoretical Dilemmas
Part 2: Societies in the Processes of Changes The Dimension of Time Social Change – Different Approaches to its Observation and Analysis Crisis as a Challenge
Part 3: Ideas of the Sociological “Founding Fathers” Sociology as a Science of Social Statics and Dynamics The Evolution of the Social Organism Historical Materialism Explaining the Emergence of Capitalism Digression on the Early Rationalization of Time Sociology as a Science About Social Facts A Digression on Collective Memory
Part 4: Systems, Structures, and Functions The Social System and Evolution Inequality, Stratification, Mobility Theories of Conflict Structuralism and Post-Structuralism Functional Differentiation and its Consequences World-System
Part 5: Civilizational Analysis Civilizing Process Paradigms of Human Condition Civilizations of the Axial Age
Part 6: The Modern World, its Formative Processes and Transformations Pathways to Modern Society The Formation of Modern Nations The Dark Side of Modernization Wars, Conflicts and Violence From the First Modernity to the Second Modernity
Part 7: The Human Individual and History Individualization in the Perspective of Historical-Sociological Thinking Individualism and Holism Homo Sociologicus Human Individual and His Place in History
