Thursday, September 9, 2010

RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN SOCIOLOGY AND HISTORY

The title page to"The historians history of the world"
        Sociology and history are much interelated with eachother.History is the branch of the social science which deals with the records of past events.Historical sociology is the discipline which is concern with the studyu of socila phenomena,social process and so forth in the past.It is also called social history.   
                               SIMILARITIES BETWEEN SOCIOLOGY AND HISTORY
          Sociology is the study of society while history seeks to establish the squence in which events occurs in the past .Like historian sociologist are concerns  with the relationship between events occuring more or  less at the same time .In this context,history suplies the material for sociologu as well as sociology gives the social background for the study of historrry.It is further said that history would be meaningless without explaining sociallly significiant events.
          Sociologist are most intrested in teh contemporary events  and recent past which is also related with history.Thus, their mitual dependance upon eachother has lead G.E Howard to remarks that"history is the past of sociology and sociology is the present history."
A depection of the ancient library of Alexandria
          Peter Worsley says that "The best history is infact sociology, or sociology of the past."
                                 DIFFERENCES BETWEEN SOCIOLOGY AND HISTORY
              Despite the similarities,there are some differences between sociology and history which are as follows:
  • Sociology studies mainly contemporary  events or resent past while history studies the past events.
  • History is concrete and sociology is abstract.According to Park,"History is the concrete while sociology is the abstract science of human experiences and human nature."
         Sociologist are intrested to find the general laws of this society where as the historians are intrested to narrate this historical events in their cronical oder.This sociologist would try to find out the common aspects of the events recorded by the historians.

  • Sociology and history has different attitude.History has different attitude.History would deal events in all their aspects while sociology would study them  from the view points of social relationship involved.
  • Sociology is the generalizing science.It seeks to establish generalization after a careful study of social phenomena.History on other hand is an individualizing science.It seeks to establish the sequence in which events occur.
  • The scope of sociology is wide while that of history is narrow.
  • Sociology is capable of indicating future,while history only gives the actual account of the past. 
































































S

3 comments: