Sociology in America: A History (review)

As part of its Centennial Observation in 2005, the American Sociological Association asked Craig Calhoun to edit a volume documenting the history of sociology in the United States. The resulting book, Sociology in America: A History, is a massive, monumental and masterful compendium of the intellectual and institutional currents underlying the development of sociology as a discipline in this country. Ably assisted by an editorial advisory committee of distinguished sociologists (Andrew Abbott, Troy Duster, Barbara Laslett, Alan Sica and Margaret Somers), Calhoun has assembled a set of high quality and well-written essays that collectively provide a valuable synopsis of our discipline from its roots in the 19^th century to the present.

Calhoun notes that this volume represents sociological history in three senses: it is written by sociologists; it focuses on the development of the discipline (not on the implications for broader intellectual history); and it emphasizes institutional patterns shaping the field. Coverage of the field was but one goal of many and thus some areas have not been covered as much as they could have been, such as: rural and urban sociology, ethnicity as distinct from race, relations to other disciplines, medical sociology, and the history of teaching of sociology.

Calhoun's introductory essay provides a useful overview of the history of sociology in the United States. It also outlines a number of key themes that serve as unifying ideas for many of the chapters that follow. These themes include: the diversity and heterogeneity of American sociology, the on-going tension between the pursuit of scientific knowledge and public engagement, the growing fragmentation of sociology into "special sociologies," and challenges to Comte's assertion that sociology is the "queen of the sciences." The concluding chapter, by Alan Sica, surveys the key early historiographies of sociology in the United States, while an appendix containing extensive readings and resources about the history of American sociology is provided by Alton Phillips and Jonathan VanAntwerpen. The 19 chapters in between flesh out these themes and provide considerable insights into the development of sociology in the United States.

Several chapters focus on the intellectual boundary work that served to differentiate sociology from related disciplines such as philosophy (by Neil Gross) and biology (Daniel Breslau's chapter on the American Spencerians, whose evolutionary view of sociology as an organism dominated sociological thinking in the 19^th century). Other chapters explore the relations between sociology and professional fields such as social work (by Patricia Lengerman and Gillian Niebrugge), criminology (by James Short and Lorine Hughes) and education (by Pamela Barnhouse Walters).

The unfolding of sociological thought – and the development of sociology as a discipline – as a "confluence of many streams" and its institutional development in specific time periods is often an exciting story and some chapters set the stage for others. The development of sociology institutionally and the emergence of several of its divisions (between scientists and reformers, for example) during the first half century of sociology is described by Stephen Turner as he writes about the career of Charles Ellwood. Progress during the Great Depression and New Deal is summarized by Charles Camic, and developments during World War II and the ensuing Cold War are told by Andrew Abbott and James Sparrow. The impact of the events of the 1960s on sociology is discussed in chapters by Doug McAdam and Immanuel Wallerstein. The diversity of sociological views before World War II gave way to a more hegemonic field dominated by positivism after the war, in which functionalism became the dominant theoretical perspective and multivariate analysis the dominant analytic strategy (the "postwar settlement" discussed by George Steinmetz). This, in turn, led to disciplinary challenges to this "mainstream sociology," as chronicled by Craig Calhoun and Jonathan VanAntwerpen. Marjorie DeVault traces the development of fieldwork methods since the early years of the 20^th century. And Michael Kennedy and Miguel Centeno assess the relations between sociology in America and in other countries, and evaluate the internationalism of American sociology.

As sociology expanded as a...