History of and in Sociology

Epochal synthesis, retrospective ethnography, and critical comparison identify three distinct ways of thinking about history–sociology relations. Epochal synthesis has lost the favor it enjoyed 40 years ago, but is likely to revive with the rising prevalence of evolutionary explanations for social affairs. Retrospective ethnography requires an ability to reconstruct actors’ dispositions from the historical record, never an easy task. Critical comparison opens the way to specification of causal mechanisms and processes without reconstruction of dispositions. Retrospective ethnography and critical comparison will compete for historical sociologists’ attention for some time to come.