黑料传送门

This book serves as both a textbook and an introduction to historical sociology. Its central aim is expressed in a single question: How should we conduct social research on past societies?
 
Social research is often understood as the study of phenomena that unfold in contemporary society through methods such as surveys, interviews, and participant observation. However, past societies can also be subjects of investigation. Just as research on present-day society employs various approaches, historical sociology employs multiple methods. At the same time, historical sociology is grounded in materials and historical sources that must be collected, organized, and interpreted through the researcher’s embodied engagement. Therefore, a shared methodology underpins these practices. This volume was compiled through the collaboration of several scholars, with careful attention to both diversity and commonality.
 
Chapter I, “An Invitation to Historical Sociology,” explains how contributors have developed their own approaches to the field—essentially, their own ways of “cultivating” historical sociology. Rather than following predetermined entry points or prescribed routes, they emphasize the significance and appeal of charting an original course guided by one’s research interests, theoretical concerns, and accessible materials.
 
While Chapter I highlights the diversity of individual researchers, Chapter II, Introduction to Historical Sociology, examines the common methodological foundations of this field. It addresses the following fundamental questions: What type of discipline is sociology? In what ways are historical sociology and history similar and how do they differ? How does historical sociology engage with materials and how does it encounter them?
 
Chapter III, “Aspects of Historical Sociological Imagination” focuses on the diversity of historical sociology and conveys the breadth of its approaches. It invites readers to discover the histories embedded within familiar objects and everyday events, and to experience the intellectual excitement of uncovering the workings of forces that can only be described as “society.”
 
Chapter IV, “Varieties of Historical Materials and Data,” discusses the commonalities of historical sociology by explaining its foundational sources and data. These include not only printed texts and written documents but also visual materials, digital data, and past social surveys. Recording and preserving narratives constitute vital practices in historical sociology.
 
Chapter V, “The World of Historical Sociology,” offers a guide to classic works that continue to shape this field. The selected studies represent a range of perspectives, including the historical vision embedded in sociology’s founding principles, the influence of social history since the 1970s, the role of historical research in Japanese empirical sociology, and the development of historical sociology as a contemporary social theory. Together, these works embody the field’s diversity.
 
Bringing together the diversity and commonality explored throughout the book, Chapter VI, Before Beginning Collection and Analysis, attempts a concluding synthesis. It discusses the questions that drive research, the interpretation of “data quality,” and three analytical perspectives—algebraic, geometric, and natural-historical as well as the balance between structural analysis and attention to individual experience, and ultimately, the question of what historical sociology itself is.
 
This book does not aim to present historical sociology as a fixed body of systematic knowledge but rather as a set of methods. Readers are encouraged to begin wherever they find interest. Each entry, whether focused on an event, method, or text, is intended to awaken the reader’s historical sociological imagination and open the door to their own original explorations.
 

(Written by SUKENARI Yasushi, Professor, Graduate School of Humanities and Sociology / 2025)