The Basics of Sociology

The term sociology was first used by Comte in 1838. Although this book contains a “Sociology timeline” giving a history of sociology that jumps merrily on from Wen Hsien T'ung K'ao (c.1200 ad) to Ibn Khaldun to Malthus, sociology as a formal academic discipline only dates back to the tail‐end of the nineteenth century. It seems to me to have reached its peak as a separate discipline approximately a century later, when all the new universities and polytechnics were setting up very substantial sociology departments. In more recent years these seem to have been overtaken by departments of psychology, media,...