Historical sociology

The Past sociology is an approach in which an attempt is made, the social reality with the empirical methods of history to approach, where the emphasis is on the historical changes is. The approach can already be found in the forerunners of sociology and has never been completely abandoned in the subject.

approach

Historical sociology is in part strictly differentiated from model or system-oriented sociology, which it accuses of being narrow-minded as a result of the procedure; but sometimes she sees herself as working complementary to them. The scientific ambition (e.g. the theory of the rational decision ) to make incoming prognoses about the future corresponds to their ambition to make incoming prognoses about the explanations of the present and future rooted in the past (comparative and epignostic approach).

About history

The impressive and at first very informative use of mathematical and quantitative methods pushed back the historical approaches of sociology at the latest since the 1940s . From around 1960 it was no longer pursued by academic sociology. Only the limits of empirical-quantitative predictability (also in view of the difficult to master problems of “self- fulfilling ” and “ self- destructive” prophecy) with simultaneously high and complex social problem pressure rehabilitated a “historical sociology”.

magazine

The internationally relevant journal of historical sociology is the Journal of Historical Sociology .

Exemplary works

• Werner Sombart : Modern Capitalism. Historical and systematic presentation of pan-European economic life from its beginnings to the present (1902).
• Max Weber : The Protestant Ethics and the Spirit of Capitalism (1904/05).
• Alfred von Martin : Sociology of the Renaissance. On the physiognomy and rhythm of bourgeois culture (1932).
• Norbert Elias : About the process of civilization (1939).
• Karl Polanyi : The Great Transformation (1944).
• Alexander Riistow : Location of the present. A universal historical cultural criticism . 1st volume (1950), 2nd volume (1952/1963), 3rd volume (1957).
• Alfred Weber : The third or fourth person. On the meaning of historical existence (1953).
• Ralf Dahrendorf : Society and Democracy in Germany (1965).
• Immanuel Wallerstein : The Modern World-System , four volumes (1974, 1980, 1989, 2011).
• Michael Mann : History of Power , Volume 1 (1986), Volume 2 (1993), Volume 3, Part I (1998), Volume 3, Part II (2001).

literature

• Sven Papcke : Social Diagnoses , Classical Texts of German Sociology in the 20th Century , Campus Verlag, Frankfurt am Main / New York 1991, ISBN 3-593-34432-7
• Volker Kruse : From historical economics to historical sociology ( Memento from March 8, 2016 in the Internet Archive ), Zeitschrift für Soziologie , Volume 19, Issue 3, June 1990, pp. 149–165.
• Volker Kruse: Historical-sociological diagnosis of the times in West Germany after 1945. Eduard Heimann, Alfred von Martin, Hans Freyer, Suhrkamp Taschenbuchwissenschaft, Frankfurt am Main 1994, ISBN 3-518-28720-6
• Volker Kruse: " History and Social Philosophy" or "Reality Science"? German historical sociology and the logical categories of René Königs and Max Weber. Suhrkamp pocket book science, Frankfurt am Main 1999, ISBN 3-518-29007-X
• Walter L. Bühl , Historical Sociology. Theorems and methods . Münster / Hamburg / London: LIT 2003. ISBN 3-8258-6585-1
• Rainer Schützeichel: Historical Sociology . transcript, Bielefeld 2004. ISBN 3-89942-190-6 .
• Wilfried Spohn , New Historical Sociology: Charles Tilly, Theda Skocpol, Michael Mann. In: Dirk Kaesler (ed.): Current theories of sociology. From Shmuel N. Eisenstadt to Postmodernism , Munich: CH Beck 2005, pp. 196-230, ISBN 3-406-52822-8 .
• Jürgen Osterhammel : Social history and historical sociology . In: ders. (Ed.), Ways of society history , Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Göttingen 2006, pp. 81-102, ISBN 978-3-525-36422-2 .

References and comments

1. ↑ Cf. Volker Kruse: Historical-sociological diagnosis of the times in West Germany after 1945. Eduard Heimann, Alfred von Martin, Hans Freyer, Frankfurt am Main 1994, p. 189.
2. ↑ JHS website. Retrieved April 14, 2015 .