It is easy enough to ask the question, "How can we best explain the fall of the Roman Empire, the rise of German fascism, or the Industrial Revolution in England?" And we often want to paraphrase questions like these along causal lines: "What were some of the causes of the fall of Rome, what were …
Epochs and the social actor
It was suggested in an earlier post that important aspects of an individual's mental furniture are influenced by the concrete historical and social circumstances in which he or she is raised (link). Let's try to get a little more specific about this idea. How does historical context influence the behavior of the individuals who come …
Critical theory in the Frankfurt School
An earlier post raised the question of the meaning of the word "critical" in Roy Bhaskar's theory of critical realism. The most extensive discussions of the epistemology of critical theory occurred in the post-Marxist debates within the Frankfurt School, and Raymond Geuss presents those debates with great clarity in The Idea of a Critical Theory: …
Michael Mann on power
In 1986 Michael Mann began a strikingly ambitious project -- to give a theoretical and historical account of the history of power in human history. This effort came to closure in the past few months with the publication of volume 3 (The Sources of Social Power: Volume 3, Global Empires and Revolution, 1890-1945) and volume …
Historians of Past and Present
by Stephen Frederick Godfrey Farthing, oil on canvas, 1999 image: "Historians of Past and Present," National Portrait Gallery, London A recent article on J. H. Elliott in the New York Review of Books includes a very striking portrait of the founders of the British history journal, Past and Present. The painting includes Eric Hobsbawm, Rodney Hilton, Lawrence Stone, …
Mayer Zald on his development as a sociologist
I had the opportunity to have lunch with Mayer Zald in July last summer, a few weeks before his death. Our conversation was wide-ranging, but one segment in particular warrants publishing here. In this segment I asked Mayer how he thought about the connections among social psychology, organizational behavior, and social movements theory in the …
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Remembering the civil rights struggle
We celebrate the birthday of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., on January 21. Here is a curated set of film clips that serve to recall the major challenges of inequality, segregation, and violence that faced the African American community in the Jim Crow racial system of the 1940s and 1950s. These videos capture some of …
Character and history
Source: Gilles Mora and Beverly Brannan, FSA: The American Vision; photos by Dorothea Lange We often think that some historical periods have deep effects on the personalities and character of individuals who came of age and lived adult life during those periods. This implies that specific cohorts of people may have distinctive personality features that differ …
The human sciences
Nomenclature isn't everything -- but it is important nonetheless. What we call the areas of research that examine history, action, and social life makes a difference to how we carry out those inquiries. The label "social science" itself is not a neutral one. And alternatives like "behavioral science" have even more baggage. The phrase …
World history
World history is more timely today than ever. “Globalization” is almost a cliché, from “The world is flat” to “the homogenization of cultures” to the “commodification of place.” Everyone recognizes the fact of globalization in the contemporary world. But we need to understand the many ways in which many parts of the world were deeply …
Understanding Society 