Chapter 3: The History of Sociology: The North American Perspective

JOHN P. DRYSDALE & SUSAN HOECKE DRYSDALE

The history of sociology: The north american perspective All histories are written from a particular perspective, time, and place, and are therefore partial and incomplete. To paraphrase Albion Small (1916:721–22), the history of sociology has less to do with facts and even ideas than it does with the context of those facts and the reasons for particular thoughts. As suggested by the recent volume Diverse Histories of American Sociology (Blasi 2005), the histories of North American sociology have been written from diverse perspectives and contexts, but always with the conviction that expanding the knowledge of its history would provide a greater and more sophisticated understanding of the discipline and its complexities (House 1936; Bottomore and Nisbet 1978; Bulmer 1984; Ross 1991). Albion Small (1854–1926), one of the key founders of American sociology, produced several historical accounts of the discipline, including “Fifty Years of Sociology in the United States (1865–1915)” (1916) ...

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