Sociology
Relationship between Sociology and History
Sociology and its Relationship with History
Both sociology and history are social sciences.
Sociology is defined as the scientific study of society.
History is simply defined as the study of life in society in past. It is primarily concerned with the
events of the past .
Both disciplines are very much interrelated.
E.H. Carr in his book “What is History” argues that the more sociological history becomes and the
more historical sociology become, the better for both.
John Seely states that history with sociology has no fruits and sociology with out history has no
roots. Both past and present are equally important to understand any social issue in totality and in-
depth.
To understand any society, group or institutions in present context, it is very important that one
must have knowledge about its past because this so called past has its own social, cultural, political
and economic aspects. History is important for society as memory works for an individual.
This is because every society has evolved from a stage rooted in past to present-history of evolution.
Founding fathers of sociology have given due importance to history or historical perspective in their
analysis of society.
Sociology and its Relationship with History
Sociology and history as disciplines differ in their methods, approaches and purposes.
J. H. Goldthorpe argue s that both sociology and history differ in their orientation towards the
present and past respectively.
Historians emphasize their findings as time-space localized whereas sociologists believe their
understanding transcends space-time dimension.
Historian is interested in unique events, specific revolutions or particular wars whereas sociologists
are concerned with them as general social phenomena. In other words , history is concerned with
unique and particular whereas sociology is concerned with regular and recurrent.
Sociologists are concerned with present and primary data whereas historians are concerned with
the past and look for secondary data in archives or past events.
Historians are interested in the accurate description of past records and events but sociologists are
concerned with the underlying social processes common to all those records or patterns and
principles which help them to explain them.
History is seen as concrete and descriptive science of society-an attempt to construct a picture of
social past whereas sociology is said to be abstract and theoretical science of society.
History is a particularizing discipline where as sociology is a generalizing science.
