ABSTRACT
The traditional view which would distinguish an idiographic from a nomothetic discipline and the counter-argument that history and sociology are not separable activities point in different directions. Yet the relationship does remain problematical because in Britain the links between sociology and history have remained fragmentary and uneasy. One of the minor misfortunes associated with the rise of sociology in Britain has been the degree of mistrust displayed toward it by some English historians and the consequent comparative lack of intellectual dialogue about the potentialities of sociological history and historical sociology. To some extent the inheritance of the tradition of political arithmetic and the absence of a coherent body of theory, which encapsulated the sociological approach, led to difficulties in establishing social history as an identifiable specialism within history. The use of personal documents in sociology and history is of long standing, including autobiographies, diaries, letters and life histories.
