ABSTRACT
Implicit in what I have argued in the first chapter are two key propositions. First, history as an intellectual practice has no special, self-evident, merit or justification. There are no a priori grounds, in other words, on which one could justify ‘doing’ history, or the use of resources or materials that might be called historical. In fact, there is good reason to be suspicious of the various rationales for history and the uses to which it is put. Secondly, there is nothing about the nature of social or historical reality that can compel sociology-if we are to continue to take the perspective of that discipline-to take history seriously. It remains an open question as to whether adequate theoretical grounds for a ‘marriage’ of history and sociology can be adduced at all. However, it is clear that these grounds cannot be found in a putative ontology of a socio-historical reality as a process of structuring or structuration.
