Peter Burke 
History and Social Theory 

What is the use of social theory to historians, and of history to
social theorists? In clear and energetic prose, a pre-eminent
cultural historian here offers a far-reaching response to these
deceptively simple questions. In this classic text, now revised and
updated in its second edition, Peter Burke reviews afresh the
relationship between the fields of history and the social sciences
and their tentative convergence in recent decades.

Burke first examines what uses historians have made – or might
make – of the models, methods, and concepts of the social sciences,
and then analyzes some of the intellectual conflicts, such as the
opposition between structure and human agency, which are at the
heart of the tension between history and social theory. Throughout,
he draws from a broad range of cultures and periods to illustrate
how history, in turn, has been used to create and validate social
theories. This new edition brings the book up to date with the
addition of examples and discussions of new topics such as social
capital, globalization and post-colonialism.

The second edition of History and Social Theory will continue to
stimulate both students and scholars across a range of disciplines
with its challenging assessment of the roles of history and social
science today.

Spis treści

* Preface

* 1 THEORISTS AND HISTORIANS

* A Dialogue of the Deaf

* The Differentiation of History and Theory

* The Dismissal of the Past

* The Rise of Social History

* The Convergence of Theory and History

* 2 MODELS AND METHODS

* Comparisons

* Models

* Quantitative Methods

* The Social Microscope

* 3 CENTRAL CONCEPTS

* Roles and Performances

* Sex and Gender

* Family and Kinship

* Communities and Identities

* Class and Status

* Social Mobility and Social Distinction

* Consumption and Exchange

* Social and Cultural Capital

* Patrons and Clients

* Power and the Public Sphere

* Centres and Peripheries

* Hegemony and Resistance

* Social Protest and Social Movements

* Mentalities, Ideologies, Discourses

* Communication and Reception

* Postcolonialism and Cultural Hybridity

* Orality and Textuality

* Memory and Myth

* 4 CENTRAL PROBLEMS

* Rationality versus Relativism

* Concepts of Culture

* Consensus versus Conflict

* Facts versus Fictions

* Structures versus Agents

* Functionalism

* The Example of Venice

* Structuralism

* The Return of the Actor

* 5 SOCIAL THEORY AND SOCIAL CHANGE

* Spencer’s Model

* Marx’s Model

* A Third Way?

* Essays in Synthesis

* Patterns of Population

* Patterns of Culture

* Encounters

* The Importance of Events

* Generations

* 6 POSTMODERNITY AND POSTMODERNISM

* Destabilization

* Cultural Constructions

* Decentering

* Beyond Eurocentrism?

* Globalization

* To Conclude

* Bibliography

* Index

O autorze

Peter Burke is widely-recognized as a world leader in historiography and has been particularly influential in the convergence between history and the social sciences. He is the Professor of Cultural History Emmanuel College, University of Cambridge.