Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-dh8gc Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-03T00:55:33.989Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Sociology and Rural History: Summary and Critique

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  04 January 2016

Frederick H. Buttel  and
Philip McMichael
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

It is revealing and important to preface this paper by noting the fact that a paper of this sort could hardly have been written as recently as 15 years ago. In sociology at large, historical methods and approaches were quite uncommon from the 1940s through the early 1970s. Further, mainstream American sociology organizations have distinguished themselves worldwide by their neglect of matters rural and agricultural. In part, this is because American rural sociologists have had their own professional association, the Rural Sociological Society, since 1937. There has accordingly been a fairly substantial separation and division of labor between “general” and rural sociology/sociologists, with “non-rural” sociologists having their major allegiance to the American Sociological Association (ASA) and regional disciplinary groups, while rural sociologists have had their closest identification with the Rural Sociological Society. Further, in American rural sociology prior to the late 1970s and 1980s, there had never been a major tradition of work along the lines of “historical sociology” as the notion is commonly understood today.

Type
Research Article
Information
Social Science History , Volume 12 , Issue 2 , Summer 1988 , pp. 93 - 120
Copyright
Copyright © Social Science History Association 1988 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Abrams, P. (1982) Historical Sociology. Ithaca: Cornell University Press.Google Scholar
Adams, J. (1986) “The transformation of rural social life in Union County, Illinois, in the twentieth century.” Ph.D. dissertation, University of Illinois.Google Scholar
Akor, R. and Gilbert, J. (1985) “Dairying in California and Wisconsin: An analysis of divergent farm structures.” Unpublished manuscript, Department of Rural Sociology, University of Wisconsin, Madison.Google Scholar
Aston, T. H. and Plimpton, C. H. E. [eds.] (1985) The Brenner Debate: Agrarian Class Structure and Economic Development in Pre-Industrial Europe. New York: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Bell, C. and Newby, H. (1971) Community Studies. London: Allen and Unwin.Google Scholar
Billings, D. B. Jr., (1979) Planters and the Making of a “New South.” Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press.Google Scholar
Bloch, M. (1966) French Rural History. Berkeley: University of California Press.Google Scholar
Bloomquist, L. E. and Gilbert, J. (1986) “The American South as an internal colony: Social consequences of uneven development.” Unpublished manuscript, Department of Rural Sociology, University of Wisconsin, Madison.Google Scholar
Brenner, R. (1976) “Agrarian class structure and economic development in preindustrial England.” Past and Present 70: 30–75.Google Scholar
Brenner, R. (1977) “The origins of capitalist development: A critique of neo-Smithian Marxism.” New Left Review 104: 25–92.Google Scholar
Buttel, F. H. (1980) “W(h)ither the family farm? Toward a sociological perspective on independent commodity production in U.S. agriculture.” Cornell Journal of Social Relations 15: 10–37.Google Scholar
Buttel, F. H. (1988) “The U.S. farm crisis and the restructuring of American agri culture: domestic and international dimensions,” in Goodman, D. and Redclift, M. (eds.) International Restructuring and the Farm Crisis. London: Macmillan.Google Scholar
Chayanov, A. V. (1986) The Theory of Peasant Economy. (Thorner, D. et al., eds.) Madison: University of Wisconsin Press.Google Scholar
Collins, R. (1986) Weberian Social Theory. New York: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Davis, J. E. (1980) “Capitalist agricultural development and the exploitation of the propertied laborer,” in Buttel, F. H. and Newby, H. (eds.) The Rural Sociology of the Advanced Societies. Montclair, NJ: Allanheld, Osmun.Google Scholar
Deere, C. D. (1987) “The peasantry in political economy: Trends of the 1980s.” Occasional Papers Series No. 19, Program in Latin American Studies, University of Massachusetts at Amherst.Google Scholar
de Janvry, A. (1980) “Social differentiation in agriculture and the ideology of neopopulism,” in Buttel, F. H. and Newby, H. (eds.), The Rural Sociology of the Advanced Societies. Montclair, NJ: Allanheld, Osmun.Google Scholar
de Janvry, A. (1981) The Agrarian Question and Reformism in Latin America. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press.Google Scholar
de Janvry, A. and LeVeen, E. P. (1986) “Historical forces that have shaped world agriculture,” in Dahlberg, K. A. (ed.) New Directions in Agriculture and Agricultural Research. Totowa, NJ: Rowman and Allanheld.Google Scholar
Dewey, R. (1960) “The rural-urban continuum: Real but relatively unimportant.” American Journal of Sociology 66: 60–66.Google Scholar
Duby, G. (1974) The Early Growth of the European Economy. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.Google Scholar
Eisenstadt, S. N. (1963) The Political Systems of Empires. New York: Free Press.Google Scholar
Eisenstadt, S. N. (1973) Tradition, Change, and Modernity. New York: Wiley.Google Scholar
Friedland, W. H. (1982) “The end of rural society and the future of rural sociology.” Rural Sociology 47: 589–608.Google Scholar
Friedland, W. H., Barton, A. E., and Thomas, R. J. (1981) Manufacturing Green Gold. New York: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Friedmann, H. (1978a) “World market, state, and family farm: Social bases of household production in the era of wage labor.” Comparative Studies in Society and History 20: 545–586.Google Scholar
Friedmann, H. (1978b) “Simple commodity production and wage labour in the Ameri can plains.” Journal of Peasant Studies 6: 70–100.Google Scholar
Friedmann, H. (1980a) “Review of the capitalist world-economy, by Immanuel Waller stein.” Contemporary Sociology 9: 246–249.Google Scholar
Friedmann, H. (1980b) “Economic analysis of the postbellum South: Regional econo mies and world markets: A review article.” Comparative Studies in Society and History 22: 639–652.Google Scholar
Friedmann, H. (1980c) “Household production and the national economy: Concepts for the analysis of agrarian formations.” Journal of Peasant Studies 7: 158–184.Google Scholar
Friedmann, H. (1982) “The political economy of food: The rise and fall of the postwar international food order.” American Journal of Sociology 88 (Supplement): S248–286.Google Scholar
Genovese, E. D. (1976) Roll Jordon Roll. New York: Vintage.Google Scholar
Giddens, A. (1971) Capitalism and Modern Social Theory. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Gilbert, J. (1982) “Rural theory: The grounding of rural sociology,” Rural Sociology 47: 609–633.Google Scholar
Goodman, D. and Redclift, M. (1982) From Peasant to Proletarian. New York: St. Martin’s Press.Google Scholar
Goodman, D., Sorj, B., and Wilkinson, J. (1987) From Farming to Biotechnology. Oxford: Basil Blackwell.Google Scholar
Goodwyn, L. (1976) Democratic Promise. New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Goss, K. F., Rodefeld, R. D., and Buttel, F. H. (1980) “The political economy of class structure in U.S. agriculture: A theoretical outline,” in Buttel, F. H. and Newby, H. (eds.), The Rural Sociology of the Advanced Societies. Montclair, NJ: Allanheld, Osmun: 83–132.Google Scholar
Gouldner, A. W. (1970) The Coming Crisis of Western Sociology. New York: Avon.Google Scholar
Green, G. (1987) Finance Capital and Uneven Development. Boulder, CO: Westview Press.Google Scholar
Griffin, K. (1974) The Political Economy of Agrarian Change. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Hahn, S. (1985) “The ‘unmaking’ of the southern yeomanry: The transformation of the Georgia upcountry, 1860-1890,” in Hahn, S. and Prude, J. (eds.) The Countryside in the Age of Capitalist Transformation. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press.Google Scholar
Hahn, S. and Prude, J. [eds.] (1985) The Countryside in the Age of Capitalist Transformation. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press.Google Scholar
Harriss, J. [ed.] (1982) Rural Development. London: Hutchinson.Google Scholar
Harvey, D. (1985) The Urbanization of Capital: Studies in the History and Theory of Capitalist Urbanization. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press.Google Scholar
Hightower, J. (1973) Hard Tomatoes, Hard Times. Cambridge, MA: Schenckman.Google Scholar
Hilton, R. (1969) The Decline of Serfdom in Medieval England. New York: Macmillan.Google Scholar
Hilton, R. [ed.] (1978) The Transition from Feudalism to Capitalism. London: Verso.Google Scholar
Hines, F. K., Brown, D. L., and Zimmer, J. M. (1975) Social and Economic Characteristics of the Population in Metro and Nonmetro Counties, 1970. Agricultural Economic Report No. 272. Washington, DC: Economic Research Service, U.S. Department of Agriculture.Google Scholar
Hobsbawm, E. J. (1965) Primitive Rebels. New York: W. W. Norton.Google Scholar
Kautsky, K. (1899) Die Agrarfrage, (excerpts translated and edited by Banaji, J. in Economy and Society [1976]).Google Scholar
Jenkins, J. C. (1983) “Why do peasants rebel? Structural and historical theories of modern peasant rebellions.” American Journal of Sociology 88: 487–544.Google Scholar
Lehman, D. (1986) “Two paths of agrarian capitalism, or A critique of Chayanovian Marxism.” Comparative Studies in Society and History 28: 601–627.Google Scholar
Lenin, V. I. (1899/1965) The Development of Capitalism in Russia. Moscow: Progress Publishers.Google Scholar
Lianos, T. P. (1984) “Concentration and centralization of capital in agriculture.” Studies in Political Economy 13: 99–116.Google Scholar
Mandle, J. R. (1972) “The plantation economy: An essay in definition.” Science and Society 36: 49–62.Google Scholar
Mann, S. A. (1982) “Obstacles to capitalist development of agriculture.” Ph.D. dissertation, University of Toronto.Google Scholar
Mann, S. A. (1984) “Sharecropping in the Cotton South: A case of uneven develop ment in agriculture.” Rural Sociology 49: 412-29.Google Scholar
Mann, S. A. (1987) “The rise of wage labour in the cotton South: A global analysis.” Journal of Peasant Studies 14: 226–242.Google Scholar
Mann, S. A. and Dickinson, J. M. (1978) ‘Obstacles to the development of a capitalist agriculture.” Journal of Peasant Studies 5: 466–481.Google Scholar
Markusen, A. R. (1985) Profit Cycles, Oligopoly, and Regional Development. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.Google Scholar
McMath, R. C. Jr., (1985) “Sandy land and hogs in the timber: (Agri)cultural origins of the Farmer’s Alliance in Texas,” in Hahn, S. and Prude, J. (eds.) The Countryside in the Age of Capitalist Transformation. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press.Google Scholar
McMichael, P. (1977) “The concept of primitive accumulation: Lenin’s contribution.” Journal of Contemporary Asia 7: 497–512.Google Scholar
McMichael, P. (1984) Settlers and the Agrarian Question. New York: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
McMichael, P. (1987a) “What can world system theory add to comparative-historical inquiry?” Unpublished manuscript, Department of Sociology, University of Georgia.Google Scholar
McMichael, P. (1987b) “Reformulating comparativism from world-historical perspec tive.” Rural Sociology 52: 242–263.Google Scholar
McNall, S. (1986) “State, party, and ideology: Populism in New Zealand and the United States,” in Tomasson, R. F. (ed.) Comparative Social Research, Vol. 9. Greenwich, CT: JAI Press.Google Scholar
Mooney, P. H. (1983) “Toward a class analysis of midwestern agriculture,” Rural Sociology 48: 563–584.Google Scholar
Mooney, P. H. (1987) “Theoretical issues in the sociology of agriculture.” Paper presented at the annual meeting of the Rural Sociological Society, Madison, WI, August.Google Scholar
Moore, B. Jr., (1966) Social Origins of Dictatorship and Democracy. Boston: Beacon.Google Scholar
Newby, H. (1980) “Rural sociology—A trend report.” Current Sociology 28: 1–141.Google Scholar
Newby, H. (1983) “European social theory and the agrarian question,” in Summers, G. F. (ed.) Technology and Social Change in Rural Areas. Boulder, CO: Westview Press.Google Scholar
Newby, H. and Buttel, F. H. (1980) “Toward a critical rural sociology,” in Buttel, F. H. and Newby, H. (eds.) The Rural Sociology of the Advanced Societies. Montclair, NJ: Allanheld, Osmun.Google Scholar
Pahl, R. E. (1966) “The rural-urban continuum.” Sociologia Ruralis 6: 299–327.Google Scholar
Paige, J. (1975) Agrarian Revolution. New York: Free Press.Google Scholar
Ragin, C. C. (1981) “Comparative sociology and the comparative method.” International Journal of Comparative Sociology 24: 121–136.Google Scholar
Ragin, C. C. (1987) The Comparative Method. Berkeley: University of California Press.Google Scholar
Rogers, E. M. (1963) The Diffusion of Innovations. New York: Free Press.Google Scholar
Roy, W. G. (1987) “Time, place and people in history and sociology: Boundary definitions and the logic of inquiry.” Social Science History 11: 53–62.Google Scholar
Sachs, C. (1983) The Invisible Farmers. Totawa, NJ: Rowman and Allanheld.Google Scholar
Schwartz, M. (1976) Radical Protest and Social Structure. New York: Academic Press.Google Scholar
Scott, J. C. (1976) The Moral Economy of the Peasant. New Haven: Yale University Press.Google Scholar
Scott, J. C. (1986) Weapons of the Weak. New Haven: Yale University Press.Google Scholar
Shanin, T. (1986) “Chayanov’s message: Illuminations, miscomprehensions, and the contemporary ‘development theory.’” Foreword to Chayanov, A. V. [Thorner, D. et al. (eds.)], The Theory of Peasant Economy. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press.Google Scholar
Skocpol, T. (1979) States and Social Revolutions. New York: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Skocpol, T. (1982) “What makes peasants revolutionary?” in Guggenheim, S. and Weller, R. (eds.) Power and Protest in the Countryside. Durham, NC: Duke University Press: 157–179.Google Scholar
Skocpol, T. (1984) “Sociology’s historical imagination,” in Skocpol, T. (ed.) Vision and Method in Historical Sociology. New York: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Skocpol, T. and Somers, M. (1980) “The uses of comparative history in macrosocial inquiry.” Comparative Studies in Society and History 22: 174–197.Google Scholar
Smelser, N. J. (1959) Social Change in the Industrial Revolution. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Smith, C. A. (1987) “Regional analysis in world-system perspective: A critique of three structural theories of uneven development.” Review X, 4.Google Scholar
Sorokin, P. A. and Zimmerman, C. C. (1929) Principles of Rural-Urban Sociology. New York: Henry Holt.Google Scholar
Spencer, M. E. (1987) “The imperfect empiricism of the social sciences.” Sociological Forum 2: 331–372.Google Scholar
Stinchcombe, A. L. (1978) Theoretical Methods in Social History. New York: Academic Press.Google Scholar
Thompson, E. T. (1975) Plantation Societies, Race Relations, and the South. Durham, NC: Duke University Press.Google Scholar
Tilly, C. (1978) From Mobilization to Revolution. Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley.Google Scholar
Tilly, C. (1981) As Sociology Meets History. New York: Academic Press.Google Scholar
Tilly, C. (1984) Big Structures, Large Processes, Huge Comparisons. New York: Russell Sage Foundation.Google Scholar
Vergopoulos, K. (1978) “Capitalism and peasant productivity.” Journal of Peasant Studies 5: 446–465.Google Scholar
Wallerstein, I. (1974) The Modern World-System: Capitalist Agriculture and the Origins of the European World-Economy in the Sixteenth Century. New York: Academic Press.Google Scholar
Wallerstein, I. (1980) The Modern World System, II: Mercantilism and the European World-Economy (1600-1750). New York: Academic Press.Google Scholar
Warren, B. (1980) Imperialism. London: Verso.Google Scholar
Wiener, J. M. (1978) Social Origins of the New South. Baton Rouge, LA: Louisiana State University Press.Google Scholar
Willets, F. K., Bealer, R. C., and Crider, D. M. (1982) “Persistence of rural/urban differences,” in Dillman, D. A. and Hobbs, D. J. (eds.) Rural Society in the U.S. Boulder: Westview Press.Google Scholar
Williams, R. (1973) The City and the Country. London: Chatto and Windus.Google Scholar
Wolf, E. R. (1982) Europe and the People Without History. Berkeley: University of California Press.Google Scholar
Wright, G. (1978) The Political Economy of the Cotton South. New York: W. W. Norton.Google Scholar

A correction has been issued for this article:

Erratum