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The Classical Tradition in Sociology
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The Classical Tradition in Sociology
The European Tradition

Four Volume Set
Edited by:

December 1997 | 1 664 pages | SAGE Publications Ltd
This four-volume set presents an unrivalled collection of the key literature in European sociology. The prestigious texts range across the European tradition from enlightenment to contemporary theory. The collection explodes the myth that the European tradition in sociology is a debate with the ghosts of Karl Marx and Max Weber, demonstrating that the tradition is far more deeply rooted and broadly based.

Volume 1 is devoted to the emergence of European sociology. The contribution of classical political economy and the Enlightenment is examined. Commentaries on the work of Hobbes, Locke, Montesquieu, Taine, Rousseau, de Tocqueville, Comte and St. Simon are included. The volume creates a vivid and compelling picture of the origins of European sociology.

Volume 2 covers the rise of the classical period in social theory. It includes commentaries on the contribution of Marx, Spencer, Dilthey, Weber, Durkheim and Simmel. An overview of the main contributions of the founding fathers is also included.

Volume 3 moves on to explore the main developments in the first half of the twentieth century. The contributions of the Durkheimian Tradition, Mauss, Mannheim, Lukacs, Gramsci and British sociology are presented. The volume provides a synoptic view of the diversity and emerging complexity of European sociology.

Volume 4 identifies the main developments from post-industrial theory to the present day. The volume includes commentaries on the work of Aron, Foucault, Habermas, Giddens, Bourdieu, Boudon and Gellner. Selections on structuralism, polysemy, the positivist dispute and the neo-liberal tradition widen out the picture.

The collection is the benchmark work for understanding the history, contribution and dilemmas of the European tradition. Full account is taken of the reference needs of students as well as of academics.

Each hardcover volume of 416 pages is bound to the highest standards. The lettering on the cover is gold embossed. The slip case for the four volumes is also embossed. The volumes are not available separately.


 
THE EUROPEAN TRADITION VOLUME I: THE EMERGENCE OF EUROPEAN SOCIOLOGY: I - FROM THE ENLIGHTENMENT TO THE FOUNDING FATHERS (1700-1880)
Raymond Boudon
Editor's Introduction
 
THE ENLIGHTENMENT
Ernst Cassirer
Extract from The Philosophy of Enlightenment
Pater Hamilton
The Enlightenment and the Birth of the Social Sciences
C B Macpherson
On Thomas Hobbes
from The Political Theory of Possessive Individualism

 
Peter Laslett
On John Locke
Introduction to Two Treatises of Government

 
Paul Lazarsfeld
On Petty and S[um]ussmilch
Notes on the History of Quantification in Sociology

 
 
I: IN SEARCH OF ORIGINS AND PRINCIPLES
Louis Althusser
On Montesquieu
Emile Durkheim
On Montesquieu
Roy Porter
Gibbon
Making History

 
Emile Durkhiem
On Rousseau
Jean Starobinski
from Jean-Jacques Rousseau, La Transparance de l'Obstacle
Louis Schneidre
On the Scottish School
from The Scottish Moralists

 
A Swingewood
Origins of Sociology
The Case of the Scottish Enlightenment

 
 
II: MATHEMATICS AND SOCIOLOGY
K M Baker
extract from Condorcet, Natural Philosophy to Social Mathematics
Eric Briand
extract from Condorcet, La Mesure de l'Etat: Administrateurs et G[ac]eom[gr]etres
Paul Lazarsfeld
Quetelet extract from Notes on the History of Quantification in Sociology
T M Porter
Quetelet extract from The Rise of Statistical Thinking
 
III: "IDEALOGUES" AND SOCIAL OBSERVERS
Johan Heilbron
On Les Id[ac]eologues
from The Rise of Social Theory

 

B P L[ac]ecuyer
Villerm[ac]e and the Social Observers
from Pour Une Hisoire De La Statistique

 
Robert Nisbet
Conservatism
 
IV ALAIN DE TOCQUEVILLE
Raymond Aron
Id[ac]ees Politiques de Tocqueville
from Etapes de la Pens[ac]ee Sociologique

 
J C Lamberti
Tocqueville
from Tocquevulle et les Deux D[ac]emocraties

 
Raymond Boudon
Le Pouvoir Social
Variations sur un th[gr]eme de Tocqueville

 
Raymond Boudon
Extract from The Cognitivist Model, An Example from de Tocqueville
 
V: UTILITARIANISM AND POSITIVISM
F Manuel
On Saint Simon
from The Prophets of Paris

 
Annie Petit
A Comte
from A Comte et la Politique Scientifique

 

Hal[ac]evy
Utilitarianism
from La Formation du Radicalisme Philosophique

 
 
VI: FROM THE UTOPIAN SOCIALISTS TO MARX
G Gurvitch
Proudhon sa vie son oeuvre
Tom Bottomore
Marxism and Sociology
G A Cohen
Extract from Karl Marx's Theory of History: A Defence
 
VII: EVOLUTIONISM AND SOCIAL DARWINISM
J Peel
Extract from Herbert Spencer
Raymond Boudon
Herbert Spencer
from A Critical Dictionary of Sociology

 

Greta Jones
Social Darwinism and English Thought
R C Bannister
Social Darwinism
 
VIII: NEO-KANTISM AND THE SPECIFICITY OF THE GEISTESWISSENSCHAFTEN
Rudolf Makkreel
Wilhelm Dilthey and the Neo-Kantism
The Distinction of the Geisteswissenschaften and the Kulturwissinschaften

 
Ernst Cassirer
On Rickert
From Das Erkenntnisproblem in der Philosophie und Wissenschaft der neueren Zeit

 
 
VOLUME II: THE EMERGENCE OF EUROPEAN SOCIOLOGY: II - THE CLASSICAL TRADITION (1880-1920)
Raymond Boudon
Editors' Introduction
 
I: MAX WEBER
G[um]unther Roth
Max Weber
A Bibliographical Essay

 
Wolfgang J Mommsen
Max Weber as a Critic of Marxism
Wilhem Hennis
Max Webers Fragestellung
Annette Disselkamp
from L'[ac]ethique Protestante de Max Weber
Jere Cohen et al
De-Parsonizing Weber
A Critique of Parson's Interpretation of Weber's Sociology

 
 
II: EMILE DURKHEIM
Steven Lukes
Prolegomena to the Interpretation of Durkheim
Mohamed Cherkaoui
Changement Social et Anomie
Essai de formalisation de la th[ac]eorie durkheimienne

 
P Besnard
Modes d'Emploi du Suicide
Int[ac]egration et r[ac]egulation dans la th[ac]eorie durkheimienne

 
T Parsons
Durkheim on Religion Revisited
Another Look at the Elementary Forms of the Religious Life

 
 
III: GEORG SIMMEL
David Frisby
Georg Simmel
First Sociologist of Modernity

 
Bryan S Turner
Simmel, Rationalisation and the Sociology of Money
Raymond Boudon
The Problems of the Philosophy of History
 
IV: PARETO AND THE ELITIST SCHOOL
B Valade
from Pareto: La Naissance d'une Autre Sociologie
Busino, Giovanni
Introduction [gr]a la Sociologe de Pareto
Carlo Lottieri
Un [ac]Elitisme Technocratique et Lib[ac]eral
l'autorit[ac]e et l'etzat selon Mosca

 
David Beetham
From Socialism to Fascism
The Relation Between Theoryr and Practice in the Work of Robert Michels

 
 
V: THE EMERGENCE OF SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY
Ian Lubeek
Histoire de psychologies sociales perdues. Le cas de Gabriel Tarde
Yvon Thiek
Gustave Le Bon
Proph[gr]ete de L'irrationnalisme de masse

 
Terry Clark
Introduction to Gabriel Tarde on Communication and Social Influence
Y Atoji
Friedrich Toennies
from Sociology at the Turn of the Century

 
 
VI: THE GERMAN METHODENSTREIT
R Hansen
Der Methodenstreit in den Sozialwissenschaften zwischen Gustav Schmoller und Carl Menger
G Ritzel
Schmoller versus Menger
Bernhard vom Brocke
Werner Sombart 1863-1941. Eine Einf[um]uhring in Leben, Werk un Wirkung
 
VII: OTHER SCHOOLS AND CURRENTS IN THE EUROPEAN TRADITION
Savoy, A
Les Continuateurs de Le Play au tour du si[gr]ecle
Bodard
Le Play
from The Heritage of Sociology

 
Roger Geiger
Ren[ac]e Worms
L'organicisme et l'organisation de la sociologie

 
W Lepenmies
Between Literature and Science
The Rise of Sociology

 
 
VOLUME III: EUROPEAN SOCIOLOGY IN THE 20TH CENTURY: I - MODERNITY AND ITS DISCONTENTS (1920 - 1960)
Raymond Boudon
Editor's Introduction
 
I: THE DURKHEIMIAN SCHOOL
P Besnard
The Ann[ac]ee Sociologique Team
Yictor Karady
The Durkheimians in Academe
A Reconsideration

 
Marcel Mauss
An Intellectual Self-Portrait
Philippe Steiner
La Sociologie [ac]economique
 
II: SOCIOLOGY AND PHENOMENOLOGY
R A Gorman
The Dual Vision
Alfred Sch[um]tz and the Myth of Phenomenological Social Science

 
Peter Hamilton
Karl Mannheim and the Production of a Relationist Sociology of Knowledge
John Staude
Max Scheler
An Intellectual Portrait

 
 
III: NEO-MARXISM AND REVISIONISM
David Frisby
Georg Luk[ac]acs
From Reification to the Critique of Ideology

 
Tom Bottomore
Austro-Marxism
John Torrance
The Emergence of Sociology in Austria 1885 - 1935
Chantal Mouffe
Gramsci and Marxist Theory
 
IV: FRANKFURT VERSUS K[UM]OLN: THE INSTIUT F[UM]UR SOZIALFORSCHUNG VERSUS THE FORSCHUNGSINSTITUT F[UM]UR SOZIALWISSENSCHAFTEN
Paul Kluke
from Die Stiftungsuniversit[um]at Frankfurt am Main
Tom Bottomore
Leopold von Wiese und das Forschungsinstitut f[um]ur Socailwissenschaften in K[um]oln
 
V: SOCIOLOGY AND SOCIALISM: BRITISH SOCIOLOGY
W Lepennies
Between Literature and Science
The Rise of Sociology

 
R J Halliday
The Sociological Society and the Genesis of Academic Sociology in Britain
Stephen Cole
Continuity and Instititionalization in Science
A Case Study of Failure

 
Marshall
from Talcott Parsons: The Structure of Social Action
 
THE EUROPEAN TRADITION VOLUME IV: EUROPEAN SOCIOLOGY IN THE 20TH CENTURY: II - FROM POST-INDUSTRIALISM TO POST-MODERNISM (1960-1995)
Raymond Boudon
Editor's Introduction
 
I: GROUPS AND INSTITUTIONS IN POST-WAR RECONSTRUCTION
C J Friedrich
The Political Thought of Neo-Liberalism
Jacques Lautman
Chronique de la Sociologie Fran[ce]aise apr[gr]es 1945
Ralf Dahrendorf
The Modern Social Conflict
 
II: THE NEW FRANKFURT SCHOOL AND THE SKEPTICAL GERMAN GENERATION
David Frisby
Introduction from Positivist Dispute in German Sociology
Johannes Weiss
Sociology in the Federal Republic of Germany
T Schwinn
Funktion und Gesellschaft
Konstante Probleme trotz Paradigmenwechsel in der Systemtheorie Niklas Luhmanns

 
T McIntosh
Language, Self, and Lifeworld in Habermas's Theory of Communicative Action
 
III: THE FRENCH STRUCTURALIST SCHOOL: A PHILOSOPHY WITHOUT A SUBJECT
Raymond Boudon
The Uses of Structuralism
Tom Bottomore and Robert Nisbet
Structuralism
G Genosco
The Paradoxical Effects of McLuhanisme
Cazeneuve, Baudrillard and Barthes

 
A Assister
Althusser and Structuralism
Jose Guilherme Merquior
Foucault
Raymond Boudon
from The Analysis of Ideology
R Jenkins
Language, Culture and Sociology
Pierre Bourdieu in Context

 
 
IV: A NEW THEORY OF RATIONALITY AND A REVOLT AGAINST HOLISM
Hayward R Alker Jr
Boudon's Educational Theses about the Replication of Social Inequality
Jon Elster
Boudon, Education and the Theory of Game
Philippe de Lara
Le Sociologue et la Raison
Jacques Lautman
L'Analyse Strat[ac]egique et l'Indivdualisme M[ac]ethodologique
 
V: BRITISH SOCIOLOGY: BETWEEN THEORISATION AND SUSPICION
D Jary and J Jary
The Transformations of Anthony Giddens
The Continuing Story of Structuration Theory

 

`In presenting this monumental work , Professors Alexander, Boudon and Cherkaoui have done magnificent service not only for sociology but for the intellectual world in general. The Classical Tradition in Sociology stands unmatched as the most intelligent, comprehensive, balanced, and definitive treatment of the history of sociology right up to the present. I am already urging people to read it as an essential ingredient in their ongoing education, and I am confident that I will continue to deliver this message for many years to come' - Neil J Smelser, Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences, Stanford