Logics Of History

by Sewell, William H., Jr.

• ISBN13: 9780226749181
• ISBN10: 0226749185
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2005-08-01
• Publisher: Univ of Chicago Pr

Summary

While social scientists and historians have been exchanging ideas for a long time, they have never developed a proper dialogue about social theory. William H. Sewell Jr. observes that on questions of theory the communication has been mostly one way: from social science to history. Logics of History argues that both history and the social sciences have something crucial to offer each other. While historians do not think of themselves as theorists, they know something social scientists do not: how to think about the temporalities of social life. On the other hand, while social scientists' treatments of temporality are usually clumsy, their theoretical sophistication and penchant for structural accounts of social life could offer much to historians. Renowned for his work at the crossroads of history, sociology, political science, and anthropology, Sewell argues that only by combining a more sophisticated understanding of historical time with a concern for larger theoretical questions can a satisfying social theory emerge. In Logics of History, he reveals the shape such an engagement could take, some of the topics it could illuminate, and how it might affect both sides of the disciplinary divide.

Author Biography

William H. Sewell Jr. is the Frank P. Hixon Distinguished Service Professor of Political Science and History at the University of Chicago. He is the author of three previous books, including Work and Revolution in France and A Rhetoric of Bourgeois Revolution.

Table of Contents

PREFACE	ix
1 THEORY, HISTORY, AND SOCIAL SCIENCE	1	(21)
2 THE POLITICAL UNCONSCIOUS OF SOCIAL AND CULTURAL HISTORY, OR, CONFESSIONS OF A FORMER QUANTITATIVE HISTORIAN	22	(59)
3 THREE TEMPORALITIES: TOWARD AN EVENTFUL SOCIOLOGY	81	(43)
4 A THEORY OF STRUCTURE: DUALITY, AGENCY, AND TRANSFORMATION	124	(28)
5 THE CONCEPT(S) OF CULTURE	152	(23)
6 HISTORY, SYNCHRONY, AND CULTURE: REFLECTIONS ON THE WORK OF CLIFFORD GEERTZ	175	(22)
7 A THEORY OF THE EVENT: MARSHALL SAHLINS'S "POSSIBLE THEORY OF HISTORY"	197	(28)
8 HISTORICAL EVENTS AS TRANSFORMATIONS OF STRUCTURES: INVENTING REVOLUTION AT THE BASTILLE	225	(46)
9 HISTORICAL DURATION AND TEMPORAL COMPLEXITY: THE STRANGE CAREER OF MARSEILLES DOCKWORKERS, 1814-70	271	(47)
10 REFIGURING THE "SOCIAL" IN SOCIAL SCIENCE: AN INTERPRETIVIST MANIFESTO	318	(55)
REFERENCES	373	(24)
INDEX	397