Review of:

Peter Burke. 2005. History and Social Theory. Second edition. Cambridge: Polity Press. ISBN 0 7456 3407 9 (pb) 224 pp.

(Published August 2006, HSL/SHL 6)

In 1980 Peter Burke, at present Fellow of Emmanuel College at the University of Cambridge, published Sociology and History. In 1992 a second version followed, with a new title: History and Social Theory. A second edition of this book came out in 2005. By comparing the revisions and additions Burke made over the years, one gets a good impression of the changes in the field of social history, especially of the theoretical notions used. Initially, Burke wrote his book to introduce sociology and history students to each other’s disciplines. The 1980 edition focused on social anthropology and discussed some economics and politics. The 1991 edition broadened the definition of social theory to include “such disciplines or sub-disciplines as communications, geography, international relations, law, linguistics (especially socio-linguistics), psychology (especially social psychology) and religious studies … interdisciplinary enterprises such as critical, cultural and feminist theory, or indeed philosophy” (Burke 2005:ix). Burke understood the term “social theory” to include “cultural theory” and wrote from a perspective of “total history”: in his view an account “which emphasizes the connections between different fields of human endeavour” (Burke 2005:x). Although this 1991 edition involved a complete reconstruction, Burke tried, in his own words, not to be “too up-to-date” (Burke 2005:x), emphasizing the continuing importance of scholars like Marx, Durkheim, Weber and Malinowski.

In 2005 Burke concluded that the first version of his book, originally written as a manifesto for historians interested in social theory, had turned into “something like a textbook” (Burke 2005:xii), since historians had indeed become more preoccupied with social theory. At the same time, Burke noted that social theory had changed, notably in making a cultural turn. As a result, he pays more attention in this recent edition to scholars like Bakhtin, Gombrich and Kuhn. Also new in this book is “rational choice theory”, defined by Burke as the discussion between theorists who stress rationality and those who emphasize cultural relativism. New sections moreover cover themes like social capital and post-colonialism. The result is a book with six chapters: “Theorists and historians”, “Models and methods”, “Central concepts”, “Central problems”, “Social theory and social change” and “Postmodernity and postmodernism”. Central concepts include “Roles and Performances”, “Sex and Gender”, “Communities and Identities”, “Class and Status”, “Social Mobility and Social Distinction”, “Communication and Reception” and “Orality and Textuality”, to mention but a few. In his chapter on central problems, Burke discusses the debates on rationality versus relativism, consensus versus conflict, facts versus fictions and structures versus agents.

In each of the chapters, Burke describes very lucidly central problems, methods and solutions in social theory. Moreover, he shows how historians have adapted methods from sociologists, anthropologists and psychologists (although he concludes that the latter so far have hardly had any influence on historical research) by presenting several case studies. Burke clearly outlines advantages and disadvantages of every approach. He also continually tries to give non-Western examples, thereby himself testifying to a more global approach, which the author observes to be a relatively recent development.

Interestingly, Burke sometimes makes unexpected connections. Since he commands such a broad overview of social theory and historical research, based on an incredibly vast amount of reading, Burke is able to trace viewpoints which are often presented as new insights, to older approaches. For example, he points out that Elias a generation ago already argued that sociologists need to take into account the perspective of the people written about as well as the author’s point of view. By mentioning Elias as a pioneer in his paragraph on the postmodern emphasis on displacement or decentring, Burke shows again the importance of returning to older, classical studies.

Although Burke has added to this second edition a chapter on postmodernity and postmodernism, thereby acknowledging its importance in present-day social theory, this particular chapter is somewhat disappointing. Probably this is due to his very broad definition of postmodernity, as including “cultural constructions”, “Eurocentrism” and “Globalization”. Textual approaches are only briefly mentioned. In this chapter, under the section “Destabilization”, Burke includes the rise of network analysis in anthropology, sociology and history. The postmodern emphasis on concepts like “flow” and “transformation”, replacing a concept like “structure”, becomes particularly visible in network analysis. No longer studying fixed societal structures, network analysts concentrate on “social exchange”, on social relationships and strategies centred on individuals.

In addition to the attention paid to network analysis, communication, reception, orality and textuality, historical sociolinguists might find other interesting approaches mentioned in this book. Under the heading of the vaguer term “postmodernity” (in contrast to postmodernism), Burke signals a shift away from the “social history of culture” towards “the cultural history of society”. The latter focuses for instance on the power of the imagined and on the social history of language, particularly underlining the influence of society on language but also of language on society, a topic Burke wrote about before in the book he edited with Roy Porter (Burke and Porter 1987).

All in all, this book is indispensable for every cultural historian. It’s a relief reading about complicated matters in a clear and sophisticated style. Burke is able to present a high number of social theories in a coherent and illuminating essay, that is not devoid of humour in some places. 

By Willemijn Ruberg, University of Limerick (contact the reviewer).

Reference:

Burke, Peter, and Roy Porter. 1987. The Social History of Language. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.