Sociology In Its Place

This book examines how sociology belongs with history and anthropology.

Runciman (Author)

9780521141284, Cambridge University Press

Paperback, published 10 June 2010

248 pages
21.6 x 14 x 1.4 cm, 0.32 kg

This book was originally published in 1970. In 'Sociology in its Place', the essay which gives the volume its title, Mr Runiman argues that sociology cannot usefully be distinguished in content from either anthropology or history; that it is not only an historical but an applied science in the sense that its explanations are parasitic on the laws of others; and that to talk to looking for distinctive 'sociological' theories is therefore misconceived. The papers in the volume are grouped under three headings: the first four are methodological, the second three contain some results of empirical research and the last four are philosophical. The collection as a whole lends support to some of the important arguments of the opening essay.

Preface
Part I: 1. Sociology in its place
2. What is structuralism?
3. The sociological explanation of 'religious' beliefs
4. Class, status and power?
Part II: 5. Embourgeoisement, self-rated Class and Party preference
6. Charismatic legitimacy and One-party Rule in Nkrumah's Ghana
7. Status consistency, relative deprivation and attitudes to immigrants W. G. Runciman and C. R. Bagley
Part III: 8. Misdescribing institutions and misdescribing misdescriptions
9. 'Social' equality
10. 'False consciousness'
11. Games, justice and the general will W. G. Runciman and A. K. Sen
Index.

Subject Areas: Social theory [JHBA]