ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses the contribution, or lack of it, which Oxford and Cambridge have made to development of sociology. It focuses on A. H. Halsey's recent survey of university teachers and their judgements of departmental reputations. The chapter presents some new material on what might loosely be termed 'top books and top places' in postwar British sociology. In 1961 Cambridge finally took the plunge and with inspired choice appointed David Lockwood to a university lectureship. At the same time W. G. Runciman held a fellowship at his old college, Trinity, while Kings advertised research fellowship in sociology. Whereas Oxford sociologists have had little success in frontal assaults on strongholds of university, they have had more success with infiltration. As at Cambridge, there were two major appointments in early 1960s, with Bryan Wilson and A. H. Halsey being appointed to cope, inter alia, with new undergraduate teaching needs, but total number of Oxford sociologists has now well outstripped that at Cambridge.
