Historical Methodin Sociology

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Historical Method in Sociological Research
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Module Detail and its Structure
Subject Name Sociology
Paper Name Methodology of Research in Sociology

Module Name/Title Historical method in sociological research
Module Id RMS 31
Pre-requisites Some knowledge of history and historical monographs. Knowledge of
sociological monographs.
Objectives To introduce learner to the use of the historical method in sociological
research. This would include introduction to the basic concepts and strategies
of the historical method, and its limitations.
Keywords History, sociology, method
Development Team

Role in Content Development Name Affiliation
National Coordinator
Subject Coordinator Prof. Sujata Patel Dept. of Sociology,
University of Hyderabad
Paper Coordinator Prof. Biswajit Ghosh Professor, Department of Sociology, The
University of Burdwan, Burdwan 713104
Email: bghoshbu@gmail.com
Ph. M +91 9002769014
Content Writer Prof. M Rajivlochan Professor, Department of History, Panjab
University, Chandigarh 160014
Email: mrajivlochan@hotmail.com
Ph. M +91 9417566600
Ph. L +91 172 2721444
Content Writer Prof. Biswajit Ghosh Do
Content Reviewer (CR) Prof. Biswajit Ghosh Do
Language Editor (LE) Prof. Biswajit Ghosh Do
Technical Conversion

1
Name of Paper: Methodology of Research in Sociology
Sociology Name of Module: Historical Method in Sociology

Contents
1. Objective ........................................................................................................................................... 3
2. Introduction ....................................................................................................................................... 3
3. Learning Outcome............................................................................................................................. 3
4. Historians making use of sociological insights ................................................................................. 3
5. Historical method needed to makes sense of society as a whole ...................................................... 4
6. The interlinking of the sociological and historical methods ............................................................. 4
7. The reason for using the historical method to understand sociological questions ............................ 4
7.1 Historical method helps contextualise research ................................................................................ 5
7.2 Bench-marking through time ............................................................................................................ 6
Self Check Exercise 1: .............................................................................................................................. 6
8. What is the historical method? .......................................................................................................... 7
8.1 Secondary sources ............................................................................................................................... 7
8.2 Kind of primary sources ...................................................................................................................... 7
8.2.1 Written sources ............................................................................................................................... 8
8.2.2 Need to know languages ................................................................................................................. 8
8.2.3 Unwritten sources ........................................................................................................................... 9
Self-check Exercise- 2 .............................................................................................................................. 9
9. Archives ............................................................................................................................................ 9
9.1 Archives yet another resource ........................................................................................................ 10
10. Analytical tools used for the historical method ................................................................................ 11
10.1 Examples of the use of the historical method.. ............................................................................... 11
11. Limitations of the historical method ........................................................................................... 12
Self-check exercise 3 .............................................................................................................................. 12
12. Summary ..................................................................................................................................... 13
13. Did you know? ............................................................................................................................ 14
14. Some useful links and e-resources .............................................................................................. 15
15. Glossary ...................................................................................................................................... 16
16. Bibliography.................................................................................................................................... 16
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1. Objective
In this module you will learn about the nature and use of the historical method for sociological research.
At the end are given some digital resources for use as also a brief bibliography pertaining to the use of the
historical method.
2. Introduction
• Early sociology strongly historical in its orientation.

• With the emergence of quantitative streams of sociology those using the historical method get
categorised as doing ‘qualitative’ sociology.
Sociology at its birth was practised as what would today be called ‘historical sociology’. The writings of
Auguste Comte (Comte, 1865) — the one who brought into widespread use the term ‘sociology’— and
Herbert Spencer (Spencer, 1851) were centred on the practise of history. Both Comte and Spencer, in
their own way, were trying to make sense of large scale transformations in society and identify structures
and processes that underlay the working of society by trying to evolve a ‘scientific’ understanding of
society as it changed over time using information about the past. By the late nineteenth century the
professionalization of the disciplines, the demands for more direct evidence and much more resulted in a
presumption gaining importance within sociology that studying live individuals, in a suitably scientific
manner, would provide the required scientific insight into the working of society that sociologists hoped
to find. Gradually, what would broadly be known as ‘quantitative method’ in sociology was evolving into
its own. In contrast, there was the ‘qualitative method’ that came to be more associated with names like
Karl Marx and Max Weber.
Both, Marx and Weber, practised what would be today called ‘Historical Sociology’. However, they were
very sensitive to the fact that history, as it was being practised in the nineteenth century, was essentially a
discipline that revelled in the historians’ whimsy: what the historian was saying was history; you believed
it to be correct at your own risk and responsibility. The best that historians could do was from Germany,
an effort by way of disciplining the craft of history and making it as close to being ‘scientific’ as possible,
the celebrated injunction from the German historian von Ranke, who in the mid-19th century was the
‘Royal Historiographer’ in the Prussian court: that history should be practised as a scientific discipline,
the historian should back up their conclusions with information from the archives and it was important to
first have a critical analysis of the sources. But, neither von Ranke nor his equally celebrated students
provided a textbook method of how this could be done. Under the circumstances, people like Marx and
Weber, interested more in the problems of contemporary times and delving into the past only in order to
get an insight into their own specific contemporary problems, were forced to come up with their own
strategies of systematisation and being scientific.
Marx’s way of being more ‘scientific’ involved taking a template of human behaviour that was
considered to be universally true, hence ‘scientific’. ‘All history is a history of class struggle’, was the
opening line of the Communist Manifesto, one of the earliest documents authored by Marx (1848). The
subsequent endeavour to understand history involved stretching and testing evidence about social and
individual action against this template. Marx’s much celebrated studies on the history of capitalism and
the condition of industrial workers were significantly based on historical data from official archives
(1867). This data had been mostly generated by the authorities of the State and the Church in order to
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facilitate the governance of their respective institutions. Bringing about revolutionary changes or
empowering people was not the purpose of these efforts at data collection and maintenance. It was Marx’s
efforts to stretch the archival data over a revolutionary template that provided the basis of understanding
the faults of nineteenth century society and the possibilities of bringing about changes in this society.
In the case of Weber this meant that the writing of the history of medieval business organisations in 1889
(Weber 2003), and Roman agrarian history and its significance for public and private law in 1891
(1891)—both studies done using the historical method. This, one could say, was Weber before Weberian
sociology came into being. It was during these studies that Weber began to also systematise the concepts
on the basis of which society could be studied, adding to the body of systematisation of concepts that
would enable sociology to claim scientificity for itself.
Little logical or methodological reason for separation between the ‘sociological’ and ‘historical’ method
Within the broad realm of the qualitative method in sociology came, by the mid-twentieth century, those
enquiries in which the historical method was used more extensively. Many sociologists, whose practise
varied considerably, have commented on how the sociological method was not entirely divorced from the
historical. Anthony Giddens (Giddens, 1979) insisted that there was no logical or methodological reason
to distinguish between the historical method and the more quantitative one. Two decades earlier C Wright
Mills had made a similar exhortation: “Every social science ... requires an historical scope of conception
and a full use of historical materials” (Mills, 1959).
3. Learning Outcome
This module would acquaint you with the historical method in sociological research along with some
examples of the same. It will also provide an introduction to the more important resources used whilst
using the historical method.
4. Historians making use of sociological insights
It was not just sociologists who were exhorting researchers to make use of the historical method to obtain
a superior insight into their research problems. Historians too would do the same, in the other direction,
—ask historians to make use of sociological insights. Peter Burke (1980) was one such example who in
his studies of cultural history was influenced enough by the sociological method and concepts that he
argued for the need for social scientists to be skilled in both history as well as sociology.
5. Historical method needed to makes sense of society as a whole
So long as historians and sociologists try to make sense of the society as a whole, Peter Burke would say,
there is no way in which one can ignore the other (Burke, 1980: 1). If sociology is defined as the study of
human society, with an emphasis on generalizations about its structure and development then”, Burke
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would say, “history is defined as the study of human societies...placing the emphasis on the differences
between them” (Burke, 1992: 2).
6. The interlinking of the sociological and historical methods
Such exhortations about interlinking the historical and the sociological method have continued over the
years from the side both of historians and sociologists. Today, we might take for granted the importance
and relevance of both the methods. Which method would be given primacy would depend on the manner
in which the research questions have been framed and the kind of evidence available at hand.
John H Goldthorpe, the sociologist has even gone to the extent of dismissing any difference between the
method of the sociologist and that of the historian even while insisting that the manner in which historians
and sociologists reach their conclusions are substantially different. He insisted that mostly the difference
lay in the historians emphasising their findings as time-space localised whereas sociologists believed that
their understanding transcends space-time coordinates (Goldthorpe, 1991). As the practise of history has
evolved over the twentieth century it has become clear that historians are more interested in
reconstructing events, understanding phenomenon and explaining processes. Partly this has to do with the
nature of the source material which comes to us from the past. It is more scattered, less systematised and
cannot necessarily be moulded to suit the questions under research. It is not so much the questions that
determine the nature of the evidence to be collected, rather questions in historical research often get
framed on the basis of the material available for research.
7. The reason for using the historical method to understand sociological questions
• Social structures are not stand alone entities

• Events of the past influence the way the present is structured
If happenings of the past influence contemporary structures, processes and interactions, then the historical
method is an important way of uncovering the past. If society is a multi-layered entity then historical
enquiry sensitizes us to the fact of uniqueness of some layers of a society and their changeability with
time and context. The need to use the historical method also arises because society is not a timeless entity.
It changes according to the specific place and time in which it is located. The manner in which people
exist, their combining to form associations, groups and even larger entities like nations change
significantly over time. Moreover, even contemporary societies, the ones that sociologists study, do not
exist on a stand-alone basis, as it were. They stand in a larger stream of history. Their contemporary
existence itself is being influenced in significant ways by the larger processes of history of which they are
part.
7.1 Historical method helps contextualise research
Hence, it is important to be
(a) Sensitive to the historical processes within which the society is located;
(b) Able to examine the changes occurring over time.
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As Charles Tilly, the American sociologist who conducted a number of historical enquiries, noticed that
historical enquiry sensitises us to the fact that boundaries of social units are porous, structures keep
changing, sequences never quite repeat themselves, what has happened before affects the character of the
next structure, sequence or process (Tilly, 1994).
Something akin to this was experienced when insights from America were sought to be imposed on Third
World societies in the aftermath of the Second World War. In the case of India, in the early decades of
independence, the efforts at ‘development’ produced positive results only till such time that the agency
sponsoring them continued to care for them. More often than not the infrastructure and tools that would
have brought about ‘development’ in local society were simply allowed to rot away the moment they
were handed over to local society (for one set of examples of studies done on the matter of development
see (Bottomore, 1962)). It almost seemed as if the people were not interested in the development that was
being sponsored by western sources. It was only after much time and money had been wasted that a
realisation set in amongst those sponsoring ‘development’ that it might be a good idea to be able to make
schemes that fulfilled the felt needs of the local people rather than the needs that the sponsors had
presumed to exist. It would take still more time before the idea took hold that important to any sponsored
development was an effort to co-opt the people who were to be subjected to that development process.
To take another example in which the use of the historical method enabled the researchers to come up
with a richer explanation: the case of terrorist violence in Punjab in the 1980s-90s. So long as those trying
to understand that violence remained insensitive to history, they continued to focus on ‘economic
troubles’ of Punjab, the ‘decline in the profitability of agriculture’ as the main cause for violence. The
problem of course was that this argument about decline in the economy of Punjab was being made at a
time when Punjab was one of the most prosperous states in India. If anything, economists noticed a
distinct reduction in poverty in Punjab (Singh and Shergill, 1995). Other regions, facing greater
economic hardships, did not seem to be fostering terrorism.
It was those researchers who went into the history of Punjab who noticed that terrorist violence was
linked to a peculiar sense of dignity, linked with the use of violence that had been fostered by the mix of
religion and politics in Punjab (Fox, 1885). Subsequently, one of the most influential sociological studies,
based on interviews with terrorists used such historical insights to notice how the failure of the state in
Punjab had allowed for an opportunity for some young-men to use the excuse of religion to pick up the
gun and demand from local society dignity for themselves and their families (Puri, Judge and Sekhon
1999). Earlier, in the case of Punjab, a similar effort at reclaiming dignity for themselves had been noticed
by Paramjit Judge in the Naxal movement that had emerged in Punjab since the late 1960s. By a detailed
historical re-construction of the events in which the Naxals were involved Judge was able to show the
inter-linkages between the issues of dignity and ideologically driven violence in Punjab (Judge, 1992).
A similar use of history was made in the writings of Ronki Ram wherein the assertions by those of the
lower castes were traced through history to show how the battle for caste equality was not just about
gaining economic status but also about reconstructing a new culture and a new history for those who felt
robbed and cheated by the system of caste hierarchies (Ram, 2012, 2014). It was the detailed
investigations into the history of the movement that enabled Ronki Ram to go beyond issues of caste
exploitation and processes of ‘Sanskritization’ that had often been noticed by others studying the same
processes. Important in both cases, that of the studies done by Paramjit Judge and Ronki Ram, was the
effort to recreate the events surrounding the subject of study much as would be done by a historian.
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Such detailed reconstructions of the past help understand the antiquity (or absence of it) for many of the
social phenomenon that one might observe in field work and as being important in contemporary times. It
was on this point that the young historian Sudhir Chandra found fault in the analyses of the caste system
and Sanskritization that the great sociologist M N Srinivas had to offer. Chandra charged Srinivas of
having over read the presence of caste as an organising principle of society in India whilst the only thing
that could be said with certainty was that in the area where Srinivas did his field work caste was an
important component of social organisation (for a brief overview of that debate see, Chandra 1972,
Srinivas 1971). Much later, Peter Mayer would subject the Jajmani system to an extended investigation to
discover that what sociologists of India had been representing as an important part of the economic –
services exchange system in village India - was but a construct from the nineteenth century (Mayer 1993).
7.2 Bench-‐marking through time
Often benchmarking through time has provided interesting insights. One important example from India
we saw previously is that study by A. M. Shah wherein he demonstrated the historicity of the joint family
in India (Shah 1968). Shah informed a nation that was lamenting the demise of the joint family system
that this was not the dominant mode for family structure even in the past. Many years later, in a more
global setting, study on the invention of tradition showed up the absence of antiquity of many cultural
artefacts that had been presumed to be part of some long-standing tradition (Ranger and Hobsbawm
1983). Minimally, the use of archives might prevent the researcher from reinventing the wheel, so to say.
Ignoring the historical method results in
• lopsided explanations:
o Gives the impression that society is unchanging.
o Phenomena observed currently are incorrectly presumed to be rooted in history even
when none such exists.
Self Check Exercise 1:
1. What is the need for using the historical method?

The historical method is used for getting a more complete picture of the subject under
investigation.
2. Is there any logical or methodological reason for distinguishing between the historical and the
sociological method?
No. There is no logical or methodological reason for this separation. The distinction, such as it
exists, is mainly because of the nature of questions asked. A study of contemporary student
political behaviour, for example, might benefit from knowing how student politics was in the past
but it is not necessary for merely laying down the basics of contemporary student politics.
3. Do historians make use of sociological insights?

Yes. They do. Just as sociological research is poorer for ignoring insights from history so is
historical research poorer for ignoring insights from sociology.
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8. What is the historical method?
There is no single definition of what the historical method consists of. But broadly speaking, the practise
of historians, in examining changes in society over time, is what constitutes the historical method.
Historians usually are more interested in happenings, events and processes than on more sharply defined
research problems that usually interest sociologists.
If there is no single definition, then, correspondingly, there is no single way of doing history either. In
significant ways, inquiries into history depend on the questions asked as also on the availability of
material to help the investigation.
• Types of historical sources:

o Primary
o Secondary
Sources that are close to the happenings are termed as ‘primary’ sources. Those that are at a distance from
the happenings are classified as ‘secondary’ sources.
• Historians prefer to consider primary sources as more reliable for reconstructing the past.
Two large categories of sources for history:

o Primary: those that are close to the events under study
o Secondary: those that are removed away from the events under study
8.1 Secondary sources
Secondary sources include monographs published by scholars, theses, journal articles etc.
8.2 Kind of primary sources
It is the primary sources that are the more important for pursuing a historical enquiry. Given below is a
brief introduction to the kinds of primary sources that are available. Do note that initially historians
almost exclusively focussed on government documents, autobiographies and memoirs as primary sources,
but later a more imaginative use of sources became possible and the number of sources that could
possibly be used for historical research has increased manifold. The list below does not preclude the use
of some newer kinds of sources that have remained below the radar of historical enquiry.
• Till now two kinds of primary sources exist:

o Written
§ Published
§ Unpublished
o Unwritten
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8.2.1 Written sources
There is no exclusive ‘list’ of sources on the basis of which the past can be interpreted. The practise of
historians suggests that historians extensively use written records, whether in the form of official files,
published and unpublished reports and files, censuses, records with various institutions, private papers,
diaries, contemporary newspapers and journals, published and unpublished tracts, books and pamphlets
produced during the events under investigation. Virtually every institution or business leaves behind a
paper trail. Those papers are the grist to the historians’ mill. Those papers, whether published or not, are
the ones that become ‘primary sources’ for a historical enquiry.
Emmanuel Le Roy Ladurie, the French social historian, for example used the records left by the
inquisition to reconstruct the social world of the 13th/14th century medieval village of Montaillou in the
Occitan region of France (Ladurie, 1980). Ladurie based his entire reconstruction of the social and
cultural life of the village of Montaillou on the inquisition records. The Inquisition was a department of
the Christian Church which examined the villagers charged with heresy, maintained detailed records,
cross tallied the evidence provided by different individuals. In the case of Montaillou the entire village
had been charged with heresy. He is careful not to leap to conclusions, however tempting. Rather he
quotes the exact words used within the records to reach his conclusions. Such heavy dependence on just
one set of historical sources is usually avoided by historians. Ladurie’s careful usage, however,
demonstrates that it is possible to be able to reconstruct the social life of the village on the basis of the
answers that the villagers provided to the Inquisitors. Those answers, carefully recorded by the Inquisitors
and preserved by the Church, were an important source of information on village society in medieval
France.
8.2.2 Need to know languages
To say that research requires knowledge of languages would be to state the obvious. However, when
using the historical method language knowledge is even more important. In the specific case of India
using the historical method often means also being able to work comfortably with multiple languages
other than English since often ‘primary sources’ are available in local languages and not English. One
recent example of a rather competent use of primary sources is in the reconstruction of the socio-
economic micro-history of the Chamars using extremely localised information from published and
unpublished tracts (Ciotti, 2010). Here Ciotti documents in detail the history of weaving in the Chamar
community—which is otherwise associated only with leather work—till its virtual disappearance in the
1990s. Badri Naryan (2007) in his documentation of the extensive use of local language tracts, in which
the concerns of the lower caste people are expressed, notes the significance of being able to engage with
local language publishing in order to make sense of the changing concerns of lower caste people. It is
also possible to construct the local history of the subject under investigation using primarily English
language sources along with a judicious use of the interview technique as van der Veer (1988) did in his
study of the religious sects in north India.
8.2.3 Unwritten sources
As noticed above, it is possible for a researcher sensitive to the method of history to be able to re-
construct the past insofar as it is required for the inquiry at hand using information gathered through
interviews (van der Veer, 1988). Historians too have made use of unwritten records as a source to
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understand the past. Once again there is no exclusive list of such sources. The practise of historians
suggests that unwritten records that have been used include: oral testimonies, interviews that were
conducted either for the purpose of the research or for some other purpose; aural evidence in the form of
recordings from the past, as in recordings of music, speeches etc.; pictorial evidence as in photos,
illustrations, paintings etc.; folk songs and folk memories. Currently many of the important repositories of
historical research conduct and preserve interviews with people whom they consider important for
purposes of history.
Self-check Exercise- 2
4. What is the historical method?
The historical method consists of using sources from the past mainly to re-construct an event or
happening.
5. What are the kinds of sources that can be used for an historical investigation?
There are two kinds of sources that can be used for the conduct of historical investigation:
primary sources-- sources that are proximate to the events under study; secondary sources--
sources that are removed in time and space from the subject under study.
6. In what form might we find 'primary sources'?
Primary sources often are written documents, either published or unpublished. Primary sources
can also include unwritten sources such as recordings, songs, images etc.
9. Archives
• Archives are repositories, places where relevant materials are deposited and stored.
• Holdings: the material kept in the archives is known as the holdings of the archives
• Holdings may consist of records, books, private collections, microfilms and microfiches etc.
9.1 Archives yet another resource
The use of archives in social research is not a ‘method’ of research; it is merely the use of yet another
resource for getting an understanding. Historians specialise in using archives. They use them to inspect
social, institutional and personal memories. Those memories then are often re-crafted to form an
understanding of something that is bothering contemporary society. Sometimes an inquiry into the
archives is also to find an insight into the society in days gone by. Whatever may be the motive for
accessing the archives, using archives is about accessing memories - of places, people, things, institutions,
social formations etc. - from a time gone by. Memories, especially those held contemporaneously have a
funny way of seeming to have considerable permanence even when they are completely transmutable
over time. For one who is involved in social research, therefore, examining the archives could also be a
device to bench mark the subject under study through time.
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Many of the written and unwritten records are stored in archives. Many institutions maintain active
archives. Business houses, banks, governments retain archives. Often these are available for consultation
by researchers. In India, most of the active archives are linked to the Indian Historical Records
Commission that is headquartered at the National Archives of India. A specific query sent by email, to the
National Archives of India, usually results in accurate guidance on where specific archives are located.
Links to these are given at the end of this module.
A search through secondary literature generated by historians contains adequate guidance as to the
availability of archival sources.
Some records, such as land records, are available for consultation with the village level Revenue
Officials. Similarly judicial records remain stored with the concerned court. Police thanas retain their case
diaries and other records in perpetuity. Such records are not ‘archived’ in the sense of being brought to
the central repository such as the State or National Archives of India.
Archiving, in India, however, is too scattered. Not all records of importance are archived.
Just as it is important to understand the numbering system of a library in order to retrieve a book from the
library, so in archives, it is important to understand the system of cataloguing records and archiving
information. That information varies from archive to archive. Even a rudimentary knowledge of the
archiving and cataloguing strategies of an archive helps speed up research considerably. The help-desk
staff of the archives usually are more than willing to assist all researchers in this regard.
Historical records in archives are prized documents. Access to them is usually restricted to bona fide
researchers. Therefore, before visiting an archive it is important to check out the specific terms and
conditions that they lay for allowing their holdings to be consulted.
10. Analytical tools used for the historical method
The historical method relies very heavily on the written word. Correspondingly, there has been pressure
to be more sensitive to the use of language and the meanings underlying words. Prior to the post-
modernist turn in history, say before the 1980s in India, there was no specific injunction to be careful
about the use of language. However, since the 1980s, there has been greater emphasis on usages and
meanings of words and their being heavily context dependent and ever changingness. Historians of the
1960s vintage also insisted on making a distinction between the ‘historical fact’ and the fact that has not
historical importance. However, today it is understood that this is a false distinction and what fact is of
value for understanding the past is dependent on the manner in which questions are posed and answers
sought.
10.1 Examples of the use of the historical method
Some examples of sociological analyses using the historical method using both primary and secondary
sources over and above those mentioned previously in the text:
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o Some examples (arranged alphabetically) from studies done in the west:
§ Barrington Moore (1966)
§ Charles Tilly (1964)
§ E. P. Thompson (1964)
§ Immanuel Wallerstein (1974)
§ Perry Anderson 1974)
§ Reinhard Bendix (1978)
§ Theda Skocpol (1979)
o Some examples (arranged alphabetically) from studies done in India:

§ Tom Kessinger (1974)
§ D. N. Dhanagare (1983)
§ Sujata Patel (1986)
§ Meeta and Rajivlochan (2006)
11. Limitations of the historical method
• Limitations
o based on a very small body of evidence, often just one piece of evidence
o heavily dependent on interpretations of words with little possibility of cross checking the
actual meanings
History is an interpretational exercise that does not exist before it is written. Even whilst it influences
contemporary events, happenings and processes, it is not as if history is an artefact from the past waiting
outside of the research field waiting for being picked up, unearthed and brought to light. It is unlike a
piece of pottery or a cave painting waiting to be ‘discovered’. It is what the researcher makes of it.
For any period beyond living memory, the material left behind by the past will be physical evidence, and
from it a pattern of events is constructed which, it is contended, actually happened. Historians insist that
their reconstruction is fair even if the evidence base is fairly small. Generalising out of one or at most a
handful of examples might provide insights, but those insights need to be tested out more thoroughly. A
single instance does not necessarily indicate a trend. The same logic works as a check on extra enthusiasm
for insights provided by historical research. They are just that, insights. In fact historians are currently
bound to say that all historical insights are subject to qualifications, change and modifications. Historical
research does not claim to be representing any Big Truth about the subject under investigation.
Self-check exercise 3
7. What are archives?
Archives are repositories for maintaining various kinds of records.
8. What is the difference between archives and libraries?
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Archives maintain records while libraries are repositories for books and journals. Archives do not
necessarily subscribe to journals or retain books.
9. What is National Archives of India?
National Archive of India is a government department charged with holding all those government
records that have been archived.
10. How does one get access to archives?
Access to archives is dependent on being a bona fide researcher.
12. Summary

By the end of this module you have acquired a familiarity with the manner in which the historical method
helps a sociological understanding of society. You have seen some of the debates that have taken place
over the use of the historical method and its value in helping strengthen sociological research. You have
also become acquainted with some of the resources used by historians and sociologists when they do a
historical investigation into society. Also you have become familiar with some of the more seminal works
that have used the historical method for sociological research.
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13. Did you know?

National Archives of India
Apart from the National Archives of India, the documents of the government in India are available in the
records of many government offices like Thanas, Collectorates, Census Offices, National Crime Records
Bureau
The holdings of the National Records at National Archives of India

Archives of India are much
more than mere official a. Public Records
records
b. Cartographic Records
c. Departmental Records
iii. Private Papers
iv. Oriental Records
v. Microfilm Rolls
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14. Some useful links and e-resources
Digital Library http://www.dli.ernet.in/ The largest digital library in India consisting of over a
of India million books. Many of them from a time long past.
Indian http://nationalarchives.nic.in/ The apex official body to deal with archiving practises
Historical writereaddata/html_en_files/ in India
Records html/IHRC.html
Commission
Jstor http://www.jstor.org/ Digital library of academic journals and books.
National http://nationalarchives.nic.in/ The main repository of official archives in India.
Archives of
India
Nehru http://www.nehrumemorial.o The largest repository of non-official archives on
Memorial rg/ modern India.
Museum and
Library

15

14. Glossary

Repository A place, room, or container where something is deposited or stored. A common
word used for all sorts of archives
Holdings The material kept in the archives for consultation by researchers. Often the material is
‘held’, i.e. maintained by the archives but giving it out for consultation is dependent on
specific restrictions, terms and conditions under which the material is held.
Private Papers of private individuals or from private collections
papers
Official Material generated by the government for official purposes.
records

16

16. Bibliography
Mills, C Wright. The Sociological Imagination. New York: Oxford University Press, 1959.
Burke, Peter. History and Social Theory . Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992.
—. Sociology and History. London: George Allen and Unwin, 1980.
Giddens, Anthony. Central Problems in Social Theory: Action, Structure, and Contradiction in Social
Analysis. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1979.
Comte, Auguste. A General View of Positivism or, Summary Exposition of the System of Thought and Life,
adapted to the Great Western Republic formed of the Five Advanced Nations (first published in 1844 in
French). London: Trubner, 1865.
Spencer, Herbert. Social Statics: or, The Conditions essential to Happiness specified, and the First of them
Developed. London: John Chapman, 1851.
Tilly, Charles. “History and Sociolgical Imagining.” The Tocqueville Review 15, no. 1 (1994): 56-‐72.
Ladurie, Emmanuel Le Roy. Montaillou: Cathars and Catholics in a French Village 1294-‐13-‐24. London:
Penguin, 1980.
Bottomore, T. B. Sociology: A Guide to Problems and Literature. London: George Allen and Unwin, 1962.
Fox, Richard G. Lions of Punjab: Culture in the Making. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1985.
Puri, Harish K., Paramjit Singh Judge, and Jagrup Singh Sekhon. Terrorism in Punjab: Understanding
Grassroots Reality. New Delhi: Har-‐Anand, 1999.
Ram, Ronki. “Untouchability in India with a Difference; Ad Dharm, Dalit Assertion, and Caste Conflicts in
Punjab.” Asian Survey 44, no. 6 (November 2004): 895-‐912.
Judge, Paramjit S. Insurrection to Agitation: the Naxalite Movement in Punjab. New Delhi: Popular
Prakashan, 1992.
Ram, Ronki. “Beyond Conversion and Articulating an Alternative Dalit Agenda in East Punjab.” Modern
Asian Studies 46, no. 3 (2012): 639-‐702.
Chandra, Sudhir. “Modern Indian Historiography: Urgency and risk of Micro-‐Studies.” Economic and
Political Weekly 7, no. 12 (1972): 621-‐622.
Srinivas, M.N. “Modern Indian Historiography.” Economic and Political Weekly 7, no. 15 (1972): 739-‐740.
Mayer, Peter J. “Inventing Village Tradition: The late 19th Century Origins of the North Indian Jajmani
System.” Modern Asian Studies 27, no. 2 (1993): 357-‐395.
Singh, Gurmail, and H.S. Shergill. “Poverty in Rural Punjab-‐Trend over Green Revolution Decades.”
Economic and Political Weekly 30, no. 25 (1995): A80-‐A83.
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Modern World. Boston: Beacon Press, 1966.
Bendix, Reinhard. Kings or People: Power and the Mandate to Rule. Berkeley: University of California
Press, 1978.
Tilly, Charles. The Vendée: A Sociological Analysis of the Counter-‐ revolution of 1793. Cambridge: Harvard
University Press, 1964.
Thompson, E.P. The Making of the English Working Class. London: Gollancz, 1964.
Wallerstein, Immanuel M. The Modern World-‐System, vol. I: Capitalist Agriculture and the Origins of the
European World-‐Economy in the Sixteenth Century. New York: Academic Press, 1974.
Skocpol, Theda. States and Social Revolutions: A Comparative Analysis of France, Russia, and China. New
York: Cambridge University Press, 1979.
Anderson, Perry. Passages from Antiquity to Feudalism. London: New Left Books, 1974.
17

Patel, Sujata. Making of Industrial Relations. Ahmedabad Textile Industry 1918-‐1939 . New Delhi: Oxford
University Press, 1986.
Dhanagare, D.N. Peasant Movements in India: 1920-‐1950. Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1983.
Meeta, and M Rajivlochan. Farmers Suicide: Facts and Possible Policy Interventions. Pune: Yashada,
2006.
Kessinger, Tom G. Vilyatpur 1848-‐1968: Social and Economic Change in a North. Indian Village. Berkeley:
University of California Press, 1974.
Goldthorpe, John H. “The Uses of History in Sociology: Reflections on Some Tendencies.” The British
Journal of Sociology (Wiley) 42, no. 2 (June 1991): 211-‐230.
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van der Veer, Peter. Gods on Earth; The management of religious experience and identity in a North
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Weekly III, no. 1 -‐ 2 (January 1968).
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Marx, Karl, and F. H. Engels. Manifesto of the Communist Party. 1848.
Marx, Karl. The Capital: A Critique of Political Economy. Hamburg: Verlag von Otto Meisner, 1867.
Weber, Max. The History of Commercial Partnerships in the Middle Ages (1889). Translated by Lutz
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—. Roman Agrarian History and its Significance for Public and Private Law. Stuttgart: F. Enke, 1891.
18

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Historical Method in Sociological Research

Chapter · January 2014

History of Punjab, 1950s 60s View project

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Subject Name Sociology

Paper Name Methodology of Research in Sociology

Content Reviewer (CR) Prof. Biswajit Ghosh Do

Language Editor (LE) Prof. Biswajit Ghosh Do

• Early sociology strongly historical in its orientation.

4. Historians making use of sociological insights

5. Historical method needed to makes sense of society as a whole

6. The interlinking of the sociological and historical methods

• Social structures are not stand alone entities

7.1 Historical method helps contextualise research

7.2 Bench-­‐marking through time

Ignoring the historical method results in

Self Check Exercise 1:

1. What is the need for using the historical method?

3. Do historians make use of sociological insights?

• Types of historical sources:

Two large categories of sources for history:

8.1 Secondary sources

8.2 Kind of primary sources

• Till now two kinds of primary sources exist:

8.2.2 Need to know languages

8.2.3 Unwritten sources

4. What is the historical method?

6. In what form might we find 'primary sources'?

9.1 Archives yet another resource

10. Analytical tools used for the historical method

10.1 Examples of the use of the historical method

o Some examples (arranged alphabetically) from studies done in India:

11. Limitations of the historical method

7. What are archives?

Archives are repositories for maintaining various kinds of records.

8. What is the difference between archives and libraries?

9. What is National Archives of India?

10. How does one get access to archives?

Access to archives is dependent on being a bona fide researcher.

National Archives of India

The holdings of the National Records at National Archives of India

iii. Private Papers

iv. Oriental Records

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7.2 Bench-‐marking through time