The Sociological Tradition

Citation

Nisbet, R. (1993). The Sociological Tradition. Routledge. (Originally published 1966; reissued by Transaction Publishers in 1993 with a new introduction by the author.)

Chapter Summary

The book is organised in three parts: "Ideas and Contexts" (Chapters 1–2), "The Unit-Ideas of Sociology" (Chapters 3–7) and an epilogue. It runs to about 350 pages in the 1993 reissue. The publisher's description presents it as an account of what Nisbet considers the golden age of sociology, 1830–1900, organised around five major themes of nineteenth-century sociologists rather than around individual thinkers: community, authority, status, the sacred and alienation. It concentrates on sociology's European heritage and the arguments of Tocqueville, Marx, Durkheim and Weber.

Part One, Chapters 1–2: The Unit-Ideas of Sociology; The Two Revolutions

Part One supplies the frame for what follows. Chapter 1 carries the same title as Part Two, "The Unit-Ideas of Sociology", and introduces the unit-ideas from which the book's history is built. Chapter 2, "The Two Revolutions", gives the historical setting for the nineteenth-century thinkers.

Part Two, Chapters 3–7: The Unit-Ideas of Sociology

The five chapters of Part Two each take one of the unit-ideas named in the publisher's description, in this order: Chapter 3, "Community"; Chapter 4, "Authority"; Chapter 5, "Status"; Chapter 6, "The Sacred"; and Chapter 7, "Alienation". The publisher describes the book as delineating the arguments of Tocqueville, Marx, Durkheim and Weber through these themes, so the same thinkers can be followed across chapters, each viewed through one theme at a time.

Part Three: Epilogue

The book closes with an epilogue. The 1993 reissue also carries a new introduction by the author.

Key Concepts

Part One

• Unit-ideas: the elementary concepts around which the book arranges the history of sociology.
• The two revolutions: the historical upheavals that form the context for nineteenth-century social thought.

Part Two

• Community, authority, status, the sacred and alienation: the five unit-ideas, one per chapter from Chapter 3 to Chapter 7.

Critical Analysis

Strengths

• Organisation by ideas rather than by thinkers. The book follows five concepts through several writers, so the reader sees common threads between Tocqueville, Marx, Durkheim and Weber. The Times Literary Supplement, quoted by the publisher, said it shows more clearly than any previous book the common threads in the sociological tradition and why so many of its central concepts have stood the test of time.
• Sociology placed within the history of ideas. Lewis Coser, in the New York Times Book Review, wrote that it should help lay to rest the idea that sociology is an upstart discipline alien to the major intellectual currents of the modern world.
• A view of the conservative inheritance. Alasdair MacIntyre, quoted by the publisher, judged that readers were unlikely to be given a better book explaining sociology's inheritance from the conservative tradition.
• Clear construction. Seven chapters, five of them parallel in form, make it easy to find any one theme.

Limitations

• Thematic, not chronological. Because each chapter follows one theme, a reader who wants the full thought of a single author must collect it from several chapters.
• Period and place. The publisher describes the focus as the golden age 1830–1900 and sociology's European heritage, so later developments and non-European traditions fall outside the book.
• An interpretive argument. The unit-ideas are Nisbet's own organising device, and the publisher's description speaks of "what he considers" the golden age; the book is one account of the tradition and benefits from being read with others.

Where It Fits in the Course

This is a history of the discipline, not an exposition of the founders' texts, and it suits readers who already know something of Marx, Weber and Durkheim. Craib's Classical Social Theory and Allan and Daynes's Explorations in Classical Sociological Theory are gentler introductions to the founding thinkers; the edited reader Classical Sociological Theory collects the primary texts; Durkheim's The Division of Labor in Society and Weber's The Protestant Ethic and the "Spirit" of Capitalism are primary works by two of the thinkers Nisbet's book is about.

Giddens's Capitalism and Modern Social Theory is the closest companion: another comparative analysis of Marx, Durkheim and Weber, built by reconstructing each from their own writings and then comparing their accounts of capitalism, rather than by unit-ideas. Reading them side by side shows two different ways of organising related material.

How to Use This Book

It is for students who have taken a course in classical theory, or who have read some Marx, Weber and Durkheim, and who want to see how their ideas connect.

Read Part One before anything else; it supplies the vocabulary of unit-ideas and the historical background. Then read the five unit-idea chapters in order, or choose the one that matches your course: Chapter 3 for community, Chapter 4 for authority, Chapter 5 for status, Chapter 6 for the sacred, and Chapter 7 for alienation. The epilogue and the 1993 introduction are useful at the end, as a look back at the argument.

Read each chapter with a primary text by one of the thinkers beside it, and write down how that thinker handles the unit-idea in question and where the thinkers differ.

A practical sequence for a course on classical theory: first read a short introduction to the founders (Craib or Allan and Daynes) so that the names are familiar; then read Part One of Nisbet; then take one unit-idea chapter per week, pairing it with a primary text or a reader selection. Close by returning to the epilogue and asking which of the five unit-ideas best organises your own reading of the founders, and which of them Nisbet's choice leaves least visible.

Because the book is a single author's interpretation, it works best as a companion to the founders' own texts rather than a replacement. Use it to frame questions, then test them against what Marx, Durkheim and Weber actually wrote.