Abstract
The Artistry of Historical Sociology: Interviews with Leading Scholars is a collection of interviews by the author, Taihui Guo, with leading Western historical sociologists, or more accurately, historically minded social scientists. In the 15 semi-structured interviews, Guo explores with the interviewees their understanding of historical sociology as a cross-disciplinary subfield under sociology. The interviewees include first-generation historical sociologists Immanuel Wallerstein, Sidney Tarrow, and Michael Mann, and historian Peter Burke, as well as second-generation historical sociologists Craig Calhoun, Jack A Goldstone, Richard Lachmann, Peter Bearman, Jeff Goodwin, Karen Barkey, Julia P Adams, Eiko Ikegami, Elizabeth Perry, Thomas Ertman, and Philip Gorski. Although the list is not comprehensive, these scholars have shaped intellectual and theoretical discussion beyond the subfield of historical sociology. All except one (the one with Elizabeth Perry was in Chinese) interviews were conducted in English and then translated into and published in Chinese. Each interview is composed of three parts: the interviewee’s academic background, reflections upon basic theoretical and methodological issues in historical sociology, and subjects of research. These interviews unveil different approaches to theory, methodology, and subjects in historical sociology. The book also introduces works and contributions of leading historical sociologists in their own words to the Chinese academia, which has been developing an interest in this field in the recent years.
One theme of this book is about the disciplinary status and development of historical sociology. As a visiting Chinese scholar in the United States, Guo shared with interviewees his observation that American sociology is highly specialized and fragmented, an observation with which many interviewees echo. Tarrow sees overspecialization as the most challenging issue faced by social scientists in the 21st century. Lachmann notes that American sociology is fairly incoherent, without much consensus on basic theories and the main purpose of this field. Mann comments that overspecialization, as a general trend in Western academia, leads to a lack of enough people doing general and broad-ranging work such as theory and historical-comparative studies. For some interviewees, this trend has remarkably shaped the development and institutionalization of historical sociology in the United States. In the 1970s and 1980s, historical sociology arose as an effort to resist structural-functionalism within sociology and a multidisciplinary movement of bringing history and social science together, as recalled by Calhoun and Lachmann. Today, in the highly specialized academic realm, the legacy of the heyday can still be found in multiple disciplines including sociology, anthropology, and history, though losing their organic connections with one another, according to Calhoun. He also criticizes that this process of institutionalization and overspecialization limits the discussion of historical sociology in American sociology in general, which traditionally lacks a sense of history. Eiko Ikegami, the only non-Western interviewee in this book, shares the same concern that overspecification and fragmentation in US academia dilute the once-prevailing efforts in historical sociology to develop theories by comparative studies. Not all interviewees are critical about the institutionalization of historical sociology in the United States, though. Adams celebrates the diversity in research subjects, approaches, and methods in historical sociology, and highlights the internationalization of this subfield as a global network of same-minded scholars expanding. Likewise, Burke argues that the existence of separate fields and subfields preserves unique approaches and insights. He believes that exchanges across disciplinary boundaries are beneficial, but the integration of multiple disciplines, which will erase the boundaries, is detrimental to such diversity in approaches and insights.
Another theme of the book concerns how historical sociologists conduct research, especially in comparison with historians and other social scientists. In the interviews, Guo often started with questions about the tensions between a tendency to theorization, irresistible for most sociologists, and an intrinsic preoccupation with historical materials for historians. In general, interviewees agree with Arthur Stinchcombe’s comment that ‘one does not apply theory to history; rather one uses history to develop theory.’ Both Mann and Goodwin think such tensions are intrinsic to historical sociology and there is no simple solution to the dilemma of finding the right balance of theory and history. Bearman criticizes a recent tendency in historical sociologist works that use theories to explain history. Such concern that the ‘big theory’ is taking over and shaping the way scholars look at historical materials underlies many interviewees’ critique of rational choice theory. Goldstone asserts that such a takeover has already happened in economics and political science, but historical sociologists today are more aware that their research should go back and forth between historical cases and theory. Adams argues that any future efforts to energize rational choice theory in historical sociology must treat it as a historically situated mechanism and not as general theory. Guo also digs deeper into the methodological dimension of this question by asking interviewees about the role of language and first-hand materials in their research. And interviewees vary in their responses. Barkey, Ikegami, Ertman, Gorski, and Perry emphasize the ability to work with materials in languages of the countries studied. In particular, Barkey argues that a historical sociologist needs to have comparisons through language skills and to avoid relying on single-language sources. On the contrary, Mann, Goldstone, and Bearman justify their reliance on historians’ works in the English language for macro-historical analysis. Burke, Tarrow, and Lachmann are sympathetic to both approaches, although non-English language sources play varying roles in their research.
Towards the future of historical sociology, many interviewees highlight some kind of ‘interdisciplinary opening.’ Calhoun sees opportunities for a revival of historical sociology, as younger researchers make new connections between history and theory. He encourages historical sociologists to engage more with historians who have restored interest in international and world history. Barkey connects to the tradition of historical sociology in terms of what research questions to ask but emphasizes methodological innovations to answer these questions. Adams predicts future developments to be in new research topics of challenges for all scientists, such as global risk and global warming. She envisions increasing cooperation between historical sociologists (and social scientists in general) and natural scientists to understand long-term changes that shape society.
The first of its kind for historical sociologists, Guo’s book provides a valuable lens into leading Western historical sociologists’ summary of and reflections upon the subfield, after its half-a-century-long development. It also provides a diagnosis of American sociology from a perspective of those who study and value the dimension of history. Determined by the nature of this subfield, this book touches on a wide range of research subjects, which the author does not grasp with consistently strong knowledge. Communication in some interviews is primarily one-way, and thus the depth of interviews varies with the interviewees’ interests in a particular question and voluntariness to elaborate, which is common when a human subject is involved but can be alleviated by interviewing skills. Indeed, Guo demonstrates such skills in some interviews when the subjects of conversation lie within the orbit of his intellectual expertise, such as the conversation with Elizabeth J Perry on historical construction of social identity. In some other cases, however, the inability to pursue a question when an interviewee shows a lack of engagement and to build a two-way communication cuts short a conversation before it was fully developed. Such a lack of engagement sometimes seems to stem from different intellectual orientations in China and the West, which stresses the importance of such collaboration and communication. To some extent, however, it also demonstrates the absence of a common agenda, either theoretical or methodological, within historical sociology, for good or for bad. Through this lens, the status quo of historical sociology mirrors that of the whole discipline in the United States, which to some extent is searching for points of integration in an increasingly diverse and fragmented social and academic world. And it also constitutes a sharp contrast to that of the Chinese academia.