The Perspective of Historical Sociology

The Individual as Homo-Sociologicus Through Society and History

Jiří Šubrt
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Hardback
9781787433649
09 November 2017
£80.99
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9781787433632
09 November 2017
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9781787434561
09 November 2017
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  • Description
  • Contents
  • Reviews
  • About
This 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.

Part 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

The 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
Jiří Šubrt is Associate Professor of Historical Sociology at Charles University, Czech Republic, working in the Department of Historical Sociology, which he founded in 2008. His research focuses on modernisation theory and questions of time and memory. He has authored or edited more than twenty books, and has made many contributions to international publications and conferences.