ABSTRACT
Although it is possible to trace retrospectively a ‘sociological’ tradition of thought which goes back to the time of the Ancient Greeks, the word itself-an unhappy amalgam of Latin and Greek roots-is said to have been first coined by the Frenchman, Auguste Comte, as recently as the beginning of the nineteenth century. Like so many words, ‘sociology’ was introduced in response to a need. It was not a coincidence that sociology began to emerge as a recognized form of enquiry at the beginning of the nineteenth century for there was widespread agreement among observers and commentators at this time that Northern Europe and North America were passing through the most profound transformation of society in the history of mankind. This rupture was regarded as being so profound and so unique that most of the hitherto taken-forgranted assumptions about society and social relationships were thrown into confusion and doubt. We are referring here to the effects of the so-called ‘twin revolutions’—the Industrial Revolution of England (and later elsewhere) which occurred roughly between 1780 and 1840 and the Democratic Revolutions of the United States of America in 1776 and France in 1789. Rightly or wrongly, these revolutions were viewed as having precipitated quite unprecedented changes in the organization of society. The tremendous social, economic, political and ideological ferment which they provoked forced a whole range of thinkers to come to terms with trying to explain these changes in an apparently novel and distinctive way-a way which we can now call, loosely, sociology.
