Periphery toward Center and Back

Dividing the post-World War II era into three periods: 1945 to 1969, 1970 to 1999, and 2000 to 2012, this chapter describes the changing nature of scholarship on the history of sociology and the changing position of this scholarship in the discipline of sociology at large. To facilitate this description, it introduces the period divisions, data sources, and terminology, used in this analysis. The chapter clarifies the use of some terms to describe the historiography of sociology in the post-World War II era. It examines the practice and location of scholarship on the history of sociology in each of the periods identified. A historian of sociology comparing his or her subfield as it was in 1945 with conditions in 2012 would be struck, almost inevitably, by the prodigious growth and rich variegation of scholarship on the history of sociology.