History and Sociology: What is Historical Sociology?

Abstract

The relationship between sociology and history is complex and far from harmonious; it has aspects that make it particularly difficult, leading to theoretical and methodological uncertainty while creating a number of "friction" topics. While some authors consider historical sociology an established field, and other consider it difficult to distinguish between history and sociology, communication between historical and sociological disciplines is notably limited. One indication of this is the paucity of university departments devoted to the subject. Despite certain expectations of the conjunction of these two disciplines, communication between their respective practitioners is frequently loaded with mutual ignorance, prejudices, bias, and even opinion-extremes. From the outset we should say that, intending to deal with the complicated relationship between sociology and history, we do so in the knowledge that our approach must necessarily be - given the thematic breadth of the problem - selective, and, moreover, limited by coming from the sociological perspective. It is very likely that if a paper on the same topic were written by a historian, other issues would be emphasised. Opinions on specific issues would no doubt diverge, and accents be placed on different themes.