What is the use of social theory to historians, and of history to social theorists? In clear and energetic prose, a pre-eminent cultural historian here offers a far-reaching response to these deceptively simple questions. In this classic text, now revised and updated in its second edition, Peter Burke reviews afresh the relationship between the fields of history and the social sciences and their tentative convergence in recent decades.
Burke first examines what uses historians have made - or might make - of the models, methods, and concepts of the social sciences, and then analyzes some of the intellectual conflicts, such as the opposition between structure and human agency, which are at the heart of the tension between history and social theory. Throughout, he draws from a broad range of cultures and periods to illustrate how history, in turn, has been used to create and validate social theories. This new edition brings the book up to date with the addition of examples and discussions of new topics such as social capital, globalization and post-colonialism.
The second edition of History and Social Theory will continue to stimulate both students and scholars across a range of disciplines with its challenging assessment of the roles of history and social science today.
Preface
1 THEORISTS AND HISTORIANS
A Dialogue of the Deaf
The Differentiation of History and Theory
The Dismissal of the Past
The Rise of Social History
The Convergence of Theory and History
2 MODELS AND METHODS
Comparisons
Models
Quantitative Methods
The Social Microscope
3 CENTRAL CONCEPTS
Roles and Performances
Sex and Gender
Family and Kinship
Communities and Identities
Class and Status
Social Mobility and Social Distinction
Consumption and Exchange
Social and Cultural Capital
Patrons and Clients
Power and the Public Sphere
Centres and Peripheries
Hegemony and Resistance
Social Protest and Social Movements
Mentalities, Ideologies, Discourses
Communication and Reception
Postcolonialism and Cultural Hybridity
Orality and Textuality
Memory and Myth
4 CENTRAL PROBLEMS
Rationality versus Relativism
Concepts of Culture
Consensus versus Conflict
Facts versus Fictions
Structures versus Agents
Functionalism
The Example of Venice
Structuralism
The Return of the Actor
5 SOCIAL THEORY AND SOCIAL CHANGE
Spencer's Model
Marx's Model
A Third Way?
Essays in Synthesis
Patterns of Population
Patterns of Culture
Encounters
The Importance of Events
Generations
6 POSTMODERNITY AND POSTMODERNISM
Destabilization
Cultural Constructions
Decentering
Beyond Eurocentrism?
Globalization
To Conclude
Bibliography
Index
