ABSTRACT
History was always of central importance in Emile Durkheim's sociological work. Without understanding this a full appreciation of his contribution to sociology is impossible. As for history, Durkheim, from his earliest to his latest work, urges the closest rapprochement between sociology and history. History is central to sociology by the very nature of the sociological method; namely, that it is comparative. Durkheim, stressing the necessity of conformity in some sense for social order, turns attention from the false issue of conformity versus nonconformity to a consideration of various types of conformity, including, of course, the pathological possibility of overconformity. Durkheim is interested to discover in religion, especially primitive religion, that undifferentiated whole from which the elements of social life gradually differentiated. The chapter explains why Durkheim came to devote so much attention to religion in the Australian clan, attention that led to the production of his greatest work, The Elementary Forms of the Religious Life.
