From Historical Sociology to Theoretical History

Abstract

During the last fifteen years, the relationship between history and sociology, at least at a formal level, has been closer than at any time in the past. Not only have there been frequent discussions about the desirability of breaking down boundaries between the two subjects, but, at a practical level, a tendency towards convergence has been encouraged by the S.S.R.C., by mixed degree courses at universities and polytechnics and by the emergence of sociology alongside history as a secondary school subject. Leaving aside pious statements of good intent and the polite diplomacy of academic conferences and scholarly footnotage, it is remarkable how little serious attention this shift has provoked. A few conservative historians, notably G. R. Elton,l have cogently defended a traditional case for the autonomy of history against the encroachments of 'social science', but the prevailing view appears to take it for granted that in principle it is desirable that history and sociology should achieve some painless form of symbiosis. The latter has generally been regarded as the progressive solution to the problem. But much of its apparent radicalism is in reality spurious. Its vision of historically-informed sociologists and sociologicallyinformed historians leaves the conventional demarcation between the subjects intact. It challenges neither the traditional conception of history nor the theoretical credentials of sociology. It fails to question the standard assumption, common both to historians and their opponents, that history is a subject devoid of theory. An accepted division of labour continues, even if the builder is advised to read up some architecture, and the architect is invited to try his hand at laying bricks. History remains the scholarly investigation of past eventswie es eigentlich gewesen (simply, how it really happened) in Ranke's words-and once this investigation is completed, the task of the historian as such is over. Theory, on the other hand, remains the property of the 'social sciences', and if the historian is to situate his work in a theoretical context, it is to these non-historical disciplines that he must resort. The usual result of this approach is once again to elide history with the empirical, and sociology with the theoretical, and then to imagine a seamless synthesis between the two. Such reasoning is based upon extremely questionable premises. The problem should be posed differently. It must first be asked why history has been regarded as theoretically empty and whether this assumption