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high school noncompletion rates remain distressingly high for Mexicans and Puerto Ricans—the two groups with the longest history in the United States.

That Cubans outperform Mexicans and Puerto Ricans in educational attainment undermines simplistic explanations that immigration and language are the reasons for the continued educational underachievement of the latter. The continued arrival of new immigrants with very low levels of education also contributes to the slow educational progress of Hispanics. However, this is only a partial explanation because even among the native-born, Hispanics lag behind African Americans and non-Hispanic whites in educational attainment. Low socioeconomic status and especially the preponderance of parents with low educational attainment are major forces driving the persisting educational underachievement of Mexicans and Puerto Ricans (Bean and Tienda 1987). Most research shows that Hispanics with family backgrounds comparable to those of non-Hispanic whites are less likely to withdraw from high school and as likely to continue on to college. Unfortunately, the current educational distribution implies intergenerational perpetuation of educational disadvantages well into the future.

These educational disadvantages carry over into the labor market, yet Hispanics have higher age-specific labor-force participation rates than most groups. This labor-market advantage exists largely because immigrants have very high rates of labor-force participation and they comprise a large and growing share of the working-age Hispanic population (Bean and Tienda 1987). However, relatively low skills and limited proficiency in English channel Hispanic immigrants to low-wage jobs with few benefits. Yet because Hispanic immigrants themselves are highly diverse along national origin lines, group experiences in the U.S. labor market are equally varied.

The 1960s and 1970s witnessed a deterioration of the labor-market standing of Puerto Rican men and women, while Cubans became virtually indistinguishable from non-Hispanic whites in terms of participation rates, unemployment rates, and occupational profiles. Mexicans stand somewhere between these extremes, with greater success than Puerto Ricans in securing employment, but usually at low wages owing to their low levels of

human capital. Therefore, Mexicans are more highly represented among the working poor than are non-Hispanic whites, but Puerto Ricans are more likely than other Hispanic groups to join the ranks of the nonworking poor. Puerto Rican men witnessed unusually high rates of labor-force withdrawal during the 1970s, and their labor-force behavior converged with that of economically disadvantaged blacks (Tienda, 1989).

Numerous explanations have been provided for the deteriorating labor-market position of Puerto Ricans. These include the unusually sharp decline of manufacturing jobs in the Northeast; the decline of union jobs in which Puerto Ricans traditionally concentrated; increased labor-mar- ket competition with Colombian and Dominican immigrants; and the placement of Puerto Rican workers at the bottom of a labor queue. Direct empirical tests of these working hypotheses—all with merit—have not been forthcoming. However, the dramatic improvement in the labor-market standing of Puerto Ricans during the 1990s as a result of tight labor markets and vigorous economic growth suggest that Puerto Ricans are, like blacks, located at the bottom of a hiring queue and hence more vulnerable to dislocation in accordance with the business cycle.

Less debatable than the causes of Hispanics’ labor-market status are the associated economic consequences. The median family incomes of Hispanic families place them below white and above African-American families (Bean and Tienda 1987). Although this socioeconomic ranking by groups has been in place since the 1970s, in 1995 Hispanic median family income actually fell below that of African Americans (del Pinal and Singer 1997). However, the emergence of a solid middle class supports the view of segmented economic integration wherein some groups experience upward mobility while others do not.

Trends in poverty rates also indicate that Hispanics are losing ground relative to African Americans. Not only have Hispanic poverty rates risen over time, but they appear resistant to improvement when the economy rebounds. Although black poverty rates have historically exceeded Hispanic poverty rates, this situation changed during the 1990s, when black poverty dropped faster than Hispanic poverty. Thus, by 1995 black and Hispanic family poverty rates had converged, and for

some population subgroups (e.g., single-mother families and children), Hispanic poverty rates exceeded those of blacks for the first time.

Poverty rates are higher among immigrants compared to native-born Hispanics; and, among specific national origin groups, Mexicans and Puerto Ricans experience the highest risk of poverty. In 1995 more than one in three Puerto Rican families had incomes below the poverty level, compared to 22 to 28 percent for the other Hispanic groups. Even Cubans, the most highly educated of the Hispanic groups, experienced poverty rates double those of non-Hispanic whites in 1995—16 versus 6 percent, respectively (del Pinal and Singer 1997). Puerto Rican families headed by single women have the highest poverty rates, as nearly two of every three such families were poor in 1995 compared to only 30 percent of Cuban and 50 percent of Mexican mother-only families. In part, these differences among national origin groups reflect the groups’ nativity composition. That is, because recent arrivals have relatively low skills, even their high rates of labor-force participation cannot shield them from poverty wages. A working poverty explanation also is consistent with the failure of Hispanic poverty to rebound during periods of economic recovery. Puerto Ricans are a possible exception, inasmuch as their poverty derives more from nonwork than that of Mexicans or Central/South Americans.

INTEGRATION PROSPECTS

The changing demography of Hispanics has direct implications for the integration of Hispanic immigrant minority groups and raises questions about assimilation prospects. The rapid growth and residential concentration of the groups, coupled with the rising salience of immigration as a component of demographic growth, revitalizes Hispanic cultures and fosters maintenance of Spanish. That Hispanics have some of the lowest naturalization rates of all immigrant groups hinders their political participation and, for some observers, raises questions about their commitment to becoming American.

Puerto Ricans are U.S. citizens by birth and enjoy most of the privileges that citizenship confers, while Mexican and other Latin American immigrants who enter legally must wait at least five

years to apply for citizenship. Those who enter illegally have an uncertain status in the United States as long as they remain undocumented. That Puerto Ricans have been less successful economically than Mexicans raises questions about the significance of citizenship as a requisite for socioeconomic integration. The newest wage-labor mi- grants—Colombians, Dominicans, and Central Americans—appear to fare better than Puerto Ricans, posing yet another challenge to conventional understandings about immigrant assimilation processes. However, it is too early to determine their long-term prospects, which likely will depend more on changes in labor market opportunities and the educational achievement of the second generation than on processes of discrimination and social exclusion. Furthermore, the growing number of undocumented migrants among these groups could undermine their social and political leverage over the short to medium term.

Although it is difficult to predict the long-term integration prospects of any group, the diversity of the Hispanic experience complicates this task further because of the uncertain future of immigration and the economy, and because the political participation of Hispanics has traditionally been low. While the spatial concentration of Hispanics allows native languages to flourish and under some circumstances promotes ethnic cohesion, some observers interpret the rise and proliferation of ethnic neighborhoods as evidence of limited integration prospects, irrespective of whether the segregation is voluntary or involuntary. An alternative interpretation of high levels of residential segregation among Hispanics, particularly recent arrivals, is that of ethnic resilience. This perspective maintains that in the face of inter-ethnic tensions and economic adversity, individuals rely on their ethnic compatriots for social supports and hence promote solidarity along ethnic lines. One implication of this view is that ethnic resilience is the consequence rather than the cause of unequal integration prospects—that Hispanics’ tendency toward elaborate ethnic ties reflects their tentative acceptance by the dominant society. As such, ethnic traits become enduring rather than transitional features of Hispanic neighborhoods.

A similar debate over the integration prospects of Hispanics clouds the issue of Spanishlanguage retention, which is politically significant

because it provides a ready target for policies designed to assimilate linguistically diverse populations and because Spanish-language retention is a ready scapegoat for the poor educational achievement of Hispanics. Spanish is the second most common language spoken at home in the United States, but it is also a limiting attribute because two of five Hispanics reported that they did not speak English well or at all in 1990 (del Pinal and Singer 1997). Although this circumstance could prohibit labor-market integration, this is not necessarily the case in ethnic neighborhoods where virtually all business transactions can be conducted in Spanish. According to Lopez (1996), in Los Angeles, Spanish has become the lingua franca of the city’s working class. As such, the public use of Spanish symbolizes and reinforces the ethnic stratification of the Hispanic population, particularly in areas of high residential concentration. Public use of Spanish by the poorer segments of the Hispanic population not only reinforces stereotypes about poverty and immigration but also reinforces beliefs about the limited integration prospects of Hispanics.

Furthermore, considerable controversy about the socioeconomic consequences of bilingualism exists, yet the preponderance of research shows that Spanish retention and bilingualism per se are not the sources of Hispanic underachievement. Rather, the failure to acquire proficiency in English is the principal culprit (Bean and Tienda 1987). In support of the distinction between bilingualism and lack of proficiency in English, there is some evidence that bilingualism may be an asset, albeit only among the middle classes who are able to convert this skill into social and financial resources (Tienda 1982). The failure of many Hispanics to achieve proficiency in English certainly limits their economic opportunities, but it is facile to equate lack of proficiency in English with bilingualism, which does not preclude proficiency in English. Although Spanish maintenance among Hispanics is more pervasive than is the maintenance of Asian languages among respective national origin groups, language shifts clearly indicate linguistic assimilation toward English dominance (Lopez 1996). Bilingualism is pervasive among second-generation Hispanics, but by the third generation bilingualism is less common than English monolingualism (Lopez 1997b). In short, language trends indicate that Hispanics are becoming assimilated to U.S. society and culture.

Finally, the long-term integration prospects of Hispanics depend on whether and how groups from specific localities or national-origin groups mobilize themselves to serve ethnic interests. Despite the convenience of the pan-ethnic label for statistical reporting purposes, Hispanics do not represent a unified political force nationally, and the fragility of their coalitions is easily undermined by demographic, economic, and social diversification. Hispanic populations of all ages and citizenship statuses affect routine electoral politics and contribute to the electoral power of registered Hispanic voters by the weight of numbers, which is the basis of redistricting. However, greater numbers are insufficient to guarantee increased representation, particularly for a population with a large number of persons under voting age, low rates of naturalization and voter registration, and, among registered voters, a dismal record of turning out at the polls. Most important is the low adult citizenship rate of 54 percent, compared to 95 percent for non-Hispanic whites and 92 percent for blacks (Rosenfeld 1998). That voter turnout also varies by national origin further divides the fragile Hispanic political alliances, such as the Hispanic congressional caucus, by splitting the Hispanic vote along class and party lines.

In the 1992 U.S. elections, Mexican Americans cast only about 16 votes per 100 persons compared to 50 for every 100 non-Hispanic whites. Cubans cast 29 votes for every 100 persons in the 1992 election; and despite their high citizenship rate (93 percent), Puerto Ricans cast only 24 votes for every 100 residents on the U.S. mainland. Other Hispanics, with an adult citizenship rate of 43 percent, cast 17 votes for every 100 residents in 1992. Despite low rates of voting relative to population shares, Hispanics have increased their representation at all levels of political office. Rosenfeld (1998) analyzed changes in Hispanic elected officials in the five southwest states from 1960 to 1995, a period that captures the entire trajectory of Hispanic electoralism in all states except New Mexico. The analysis considered the universe of elected officials in each state, including statewide and legislative offices as well as U.S. House and Senate seats relative to the voting-age population. Empirical trends indicate the emergence of Hispanic electoralism, which he characterizes as the achievement of a steady and significant level of

Hispanic representation throughout the political system.

Thus, political behavior also points to greater political integration, albeit slow and with some uncertainty for the future. This is because most of the gains in political representation and Hispanic electoralism occurred prior to 1980, and the rapidly changing demographic and socioeconomic profile is less predictable. The political status of Hispanics underwent rapid changes during the 1990s, and the eventual outcomes are far from certain. Low rates of naturalization are beginning to reverse. For Mexicans, this has been facilitated by changes in Mexican law that permit dual citizenship in Mexico and the United States. Furthermore, legislative changes that tie access to welfare benefits to citizenship status have also encouraged many immigrants to naturalize. Finally, the higher priority given to citizens in sponsoring relatives for admission to the United States also intensified demand for naturalization. However, there persist large differentials by national origin (del Pinal and Singer 1997), with Mexicans lagging far behind Cubans and Central/South Americans.

CONCLUSIONS

Several lessons can be culled from the scholarly literature and public discourse about the social and economic future of Hispanic Americans. One is that generic labels, such as ‘‘Hispanic’’ and ‘‘Latino,’’ are not useful for portraying the heterogeneous socioeconomic integration experiences of specific national-origin groups. A second major lesson is that the evolving differentials in economic standing of Hispanic national origin groups are rooted in the distinct modes of incorporation of each group, which in turn have profound implications for shortand long-term integration prospects. A third major lesson, which is related to the second, is that the socioeconomic imprint of Hispanic Americans will be as varied as the population itself. Changes in immigrant composition and residential segregation will play decisive parts in determining how Hispanics shape the ethnic landscape of the United States into the twenty-first century.

The nagging question is: Why does there persist a close association between Hispanic national origin and low social standing? On this matter there is much debate, but both sides accord great emphasis to the role of immigration in deciding

the socioeconomic destiny of Hispanic Americans. One interpretation—the replenishment ar- gument—emphasizes how immigration continues to diversify the composition of the population by introducing new arrivals on the lower steps of the social escalator, even as earlier arrivals experience gradual improvements in their economic and social statuses. The recency of immigration of a large share of the Hispanic population has direct implications for other demographic, social, and economic characteristics. They are younger, and less proficient in English, and many cannot vote because they are not citizens. Immigrants are also more likely than native-born Hispanics to be working class and to have lower education levels. Consistent with the predictions of classical assimilation theory, the replenishment hypothesis implies that observed differences in socioeconomic standing among Hispanics will disappear with time, irrespective of country of origin or period of arrival. Lending support to this prediction is a growing body of evidence showing that later arrivals fare better in the U.S. labor market and social institutions than do earlier arrivals.

Despite some compelling aspects of the replenishment argument, it falls short of accounting for the limited social mobility of Mexicans and Puerto Ricans, the two groups with the longest exposure to U.S. institutions and traditions. These experiences challenge the immigrant-replenishment hypothesis and place greater emphasis on the complex set of circumstances that define distinct modes of incorporation for the major nationalorigin groups and subsequent entry cohorts. The structural interpretation emphasizes the role of unique historical circumstances in which each national origin group established its presence in the United States and acknowledges that social opportunities depend greatly on the state of the economy and public receptiveness toward new arrivals.

Unfortunately, it is too early to evaluate the relative merits of the two hypotheses, especially in the absence of the longitudinal data required to trace socioeconomic trajectories of successive generations. That the future of immigration (its volume, source countries, and composition) is highly indeterminate further aggravates the difficulties of assessing these hypotheses. Of course, the greatest uncertainty about immigration concerns the volume and sources of illegal migrants. Finally, the socioeconomic fate of Hispanic Americans as a

whole and as separate national origin groups will also depend on the extent to which Hispanic elected and appointed officials use ethnicity as a criterion for defining their political agendas. The early decades of the twenty-first century will be pivotal in resolving these uncertainties.

Vincent, Joan 1974 ‘‘The Structuring of Ethnicity.’’

Human Organization 33:375–379.

MARTA TIENDA

(SEE ALSO: Discrimination; Ethnicity)

REFERENCES

Bean, Frank D., and Marta Tienda 1987 The Hispanic Population of the United States. New York: Russell Sage Foundation.

del Pinal, Jorge, and Audrey Singer 1997 ‘‘Generations of Diversity: Latinos in the United States.’’ Population Bulletin 52(3):2–48.

Frey, William H. 1998 ‘‘The Diversity Myth.’’ American Demographics (June):39–43.

Haverluk, Terrence 1997 ‘‘The Changing Geography of U.S. Hispanics, 1850–1990.’’ Journal of Geography 96(3):134–145.

Lopez, David E. 1996 ‘‘Language: Diversity and Assimilation.’’ In Roger Waldinger and Mehdi Bozorgmehr, eds., Ethnic Los Angeles. New York: Russell Sage Foundation.

Nelson, Candace, and Marta Tienda 1985 ‘‘The Structuring of Hispanic Ethnicity: Historical and Contemporary Perspectives.’’ Ethnic and Racial Studies 8:49–74.

Rosenfeld, Michael 1998 ‘‘Mexican Immigrants and Mexican American Political Assimilation.’’ In Migration Between Mexico and the United States: Binational Study, vol. 3. Washington, D.C.: U.S. Commission on Immigration Reform.

Tienda, Marta 1982 ‘‘Sex, Ethnicity, and Chicano Status Attainment.’’ International Migration Review 16:435–472.

——— 1989 ‘‘Puerto Ricans and the Underclass Debate.’’ Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Sciences 501:105–119.

U.S. Department of Commerce 1993 We the American Hispanics. Washington, D.C.: Bureau of the Census, Economics and Statistics Administration.

———1996 ‘‘Population Projections of the United States by Age, Sex, Race and Hispanic Origin: 1995– 2050.’’ Current Population Reports, P25-1130. Washington, D.C.: Bureau of the Census, Economics and Statistics Administration.

———1998 The Hispanic Population in the United States: March, 1997. Detailed Tables for Current Population Reports P20-511. Washington D.C.: Bureau of the Census, Ethnic and Hispanic Statistics Branch.

HISTOGRAMS

See Statistical Graphics.

HISTORICAL ANALYSIS

See Comparative-Historical Analysis; Event-His- tory Analysis; Historical Sociology.

HISTORICAL SOCIOLOGY

Used as a category to identify social scientific research that constructs or illustrates theory by careful attention to culturally, geographically, and temporally located facts, historical sociology (or, from the historian’s vantage point, sociological history) exists as a self-conscious research orientation within both of its parent disciplines. Popular assertions in the 1950s and 1960s that history involved the study of particular facts while sociology involved the formulation of general hypotheses (see Franzosi and Mohr 1997, pp. 133–139 [for the historians’ view]; Lipset 1968, pp. 22–23; McDonald 1996; cf. Mills 1959, pp. 143–164) had turned around by the early 1980s, at which time Abrams claimed that ‘‘sociological explanation is necessarily historical’’ (Abrams 1982, p. 2; see Burke l980, p. 28). While this integrative interpretation of the two disciplines reflects the attitudes of many researchers in the respective disciplines, a few persons remain extremely cautious about the merits of integrating them (see Ferrarotti 1997, pp. 12–13).

Abrams’s claim is true for much of sociological theorizing, and sociologists realize that seminal research in their discipline has been informed by careful attention to historical information. Nonetheless, fundamental differences exist between history and sociology regarding the choice of research strategies and methodologies. Historical research emphasizes the sociocultural context of events and actors within the broad range of human culture, and when examining events that occurred in early periods of the human record it borrows from archaeology and cultural anthropology, two

companion disciplines. Historians, therefore, who examine premodern material often borrow anthropological rather than sociological insights to elucidate areas where the historical record is weak, under the assumption that preindustrialized societies share basic similarities that sociological theory rarely addresses (Thomas 1963, 1971; cf. Thompson 1972). Historians are likely to choose research topics that are culturally and temporally delimited and that emerge ‘‘from the logic of events of a given place and period’’ (Smelser 1968, p. 35; see Bonnell 1980, p. 159). They tend to supplement secondary sources with primary texts or archival data (see Tilly 1981, p. 12).

In contrast, sociological research stresses theory construction and development, and its heavy emphasis on quantification limits most of its research to issues that affect societies after they begin to modernize or industrialize (and hence develop accurate record keeping that researchers can translate into data [see Burke 1980, p. 22]). Many of their methodological techniques—including surveys, interviews, qualitative fieldwork, questionnaires, various statistical procedures, and socialpsychological experimentation—have little if any applicability to historians (Wilson 1971, p. 106). (Interestingly, however, a number of historical sociologists are utilizing narratives to elucidate sociologically traditional issues like capital–state relations and urban development [Gotham and Staples 1996; see Isaac 1997; Kiser 1996.]) Given their orientation toward theory, sociologists are likely to choose research topics that are ‘‘rooted in and generated by some conceptual apparatus’’ (Smelser 1968, p. 35; see Bonnell 1980, p. 159). Their data sources infrequently involve archival searches (see Schwartz 1987, p. 12) or heavy dependence on primary texts. Sociologists seem more willing than historians both to ‘‘undertake comparative analysis across national and temporal boundaries’’ and to present generalizations that relate to either a number of cases or universal phenomena (as opposed to a single case [Bonnell 1980, p. 159]). Reflecting these basic differences, social history, which developed out of the historical discipline, concentrates on speaking about lived experiences, while traditional historical sociologists concentrate on analysing structural transformations (Skocpol 1987, p. 28).

Although some historical sociological studies attempt either to refine concepts or rigorously to

test existing theoretical explanations, more often they attempt ‘‘to develop new theories capable of providing more convincing and comprehensive explanations for historical patterns and structures’’ (Bonnell 1980, p. 161). When testing existing theories, historical sociologists argue deductively (by attempting to locate evidence that supports or refutes theoretical propositions), case-compara- tively (by juxtaposing examples from equivalent units), or case-illustratively (by comparing cases to a single theory or concept [Bonnell 1980, pp. 162– 167]). Both case comparisons and case illustrations can show either that cases share a common set of ‘‘hypothesized causal factors’’ that adequately explain similar historical outcomes or that they contain crucial differences that lead to divergent historical results (Skocpol 1984, pp. 378–379). In any case, historical sociologists occasionally need reminding that, in both their quantitative and qualitative research, they must avoid the ‘‘common tendency . . . to play fast and loose with time’’ (Jensen 1997, p. 50), since the temporal dimensions of events have profound implications for the validity of comparisons.

Sociology’s founding figures—Marx and Engels, Weber, Tocqueville, and, to a limited degree, Durkheim—utilized history in the formulation of concepts and research agendas that still influence the discipline. In various works Marx and Engels demonstrated adroit sociohistorical skills, particularly in The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte (Marx [1885] 1963) and The Peasant War in Germany (Engels [1870] 1926). In these studies they moved deftly among analyses of ‘‘short-term, day- to-day phenomena’’ of sociopolitical life, the underlying structure of that life, and ‘‘the level of the social structure as a whole’’ (Abrams 1982, p. 59) to provide powerful examples of historically grounded materialist analysis (see Abrams 1982, p. 63; Sztompka 1986, p. 325).

Weber, who was steeped in the ancient and medieval history of both the East and West, believed that, through the use of heuristically useful ideal types, researchers could ‘‘understand on the one hand the relationships and cultural significance of individual events in their contemporary manifestations and on the other the causes of their being historically so and not otherwise’’ (Weber 1949, p. 72). However much contemporary researchers have faulted his Protestant Ethic and the Spirit Of Capitalism (1930) for misunderstanding

Puritan religious traditions (Kent 1990; MacKinnon 1988a, 1988b) and interpreting them through preexisting philosophical categories (Kent 1983, 1985), it remains the quintessential example of his historically informed sociological studies (see Marshall 1982). Weber’s extensive contribution to many aspects of historical sociology (including the linkage between ‘‘agency and structure,’’ multicausality, ideal types, and various methodology and substantive issues) receives extensive attention in Kalberg (1994).

Variously assessed as a historian and a political scientist, Tocqueville also contributed to historical sociology with books that examined two process- es—democratization (in the United States) and political centralization (in France)—that remain standard topics of historical sociological research (Tocqueville [1835] 1969, [1858] 1955; see Poggi 1972; Sztompka 1986, p. 325). Similar praise for historical sensitivity, however, has not always gone to a fellow Frenchman of a later era, Emile Durkheim, whose concepts were scornfully called by one historical sociologist an ‘‘early form of ahistoricism’’ (Sztompka 1986, p. 324). Bellah, nevertheless, asserted that ‘‘history was always of central importance in Durkheim’s sociological work’’ (Bellah 1959, p. 153) and even argued that, ‘‘at several points Durkheim went so far as to question whether or not sociology and history could in fact be considered two separate disciplines’’ (Bellah 1959, p. 154). Indeed, recent research has identified Durkheim’s cross-discipli- nary sensitivity in his analysis of the history of French education (Emirbayer 1996a) and ‘‘the structures and processes of civil society’’ (Emirbayer 1996b, p. 112). Nevertheless, Abrams’s compromise interpretation may be most accurate concerning most of Durkheim’s work. He acknowledges that Durkheim identified the broad process of the Western transition to industrialization, even though his ‘‘extremely general framework’’ demands specific historical elaboration (Abrams 1982, p. 32).

Despite the prominence of history within major studies by sociology’s founding figures, subsequent sociologists produced few historically informed works until the late 1950s (cf. Merton 1938). Also during this period (in 1958) the historian Sylvia Thrupp founded the Journal of Comparative Studies in Society and History, and since then other journals have followed that are sympathetic

to historical sociology (including Journal of Family History, Journal of Interdisciplinary History, Journal of Social History, Labor History, Past and Present, Social History, and Social Science History [Bart and Frankel 1986, pp. 114–116]). The output of interdisciplinary books continued growing throughout the 1960s, and by the 1970s ‘‘the sociological study of history achieved full status within the discipline’’ (Bonnell 1980, p. 157, see p. 156; see Smith, 1991 [for a clear historical overview]).

Studies of capitalist expansion examine such topics as the emergence and consequences of the Industrial Revolution, the rise of the working class, population growth, and the developmental operations of the modern world system. Exemplary studies include Smelser’s Social Change in the Industrial Revolution (1959) and Wallerstein’s The Modern World System (1974). Basing his middle-range model on Parsons’s general theory of action, Smelser deduced a supposedly universal sequence through which all changes move that involve structural differentiation in industrializing societies (see Bonnell 1980, p. 162; Skocpol 1984, p. 363). He illustrated the applicability of his framework by drawing examples from the economic changes within the British cotton industry during the nineteenth century, followed by additional examples of changes to the lives and activities of workers in that industry. These historical facts, however, were secondary to the model itself.

Wallerstein borrowed from Marxism and functionalism to devise a ‘‘world system’’ theory of the global economy that purports to be universal in its interpretive and explanatory power. He argued that after the late fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries, a ‘‘world economy’’ developed in which economically advantaged and politically strong areas, called ‘‘core states,’’ dominated other economically nondiversified and politically weak ‘‘peripheral areas.’’ Through ‘‘semi-peripheral areas’’ that serve as ‘‘middle trading groups in an empire,’’ resources flow out of the peripheral areas and into the core states for capitalist development, consumption, and often export back to their areas of origin (Wallerstein 1974, pp. 348–350). Within this model Wallerstein mustered a phalanx of historical facts in order to demonstrate the emergence of the world economy above the limited events in various nation-states, and in doing so he ‘‘has promoted serious historical work within sociology’’ (Tilly 1981, p. 42).

E.P. Thompson’s exemplary study (1963) took the sociological concept of ‘‘class’’ and presented its historical unfolding in England between 1780 and passage of the parliamentary Reform Bill in 1832 (Thompson 1963, p. 11). He argued that ‘‘the finest-meshed sociological net cannot give us a pure specimen of class . . . . The relationship [of class] must always be embodied in real people and in a real context’’ (p. 9). By the end of the era that he examined, ‘‘a more clearly-defined class consciousness, in the customary Marxist sense, was maturing, in which working people were aware of continuing both old and new battles on their own’’ (p. 712). His study stands among the finest examples of historically careful development of a sociological concept.

In contrast to the economic focus on issues involving capitalist expansion, studies of the growth of national states and systems of states examine political topics such as state bureaucratization, the democratization of politics, revolutions, and the interaction of nations in the international arena. Three heralded historical sociology studies in this genre are Eisenstadt (1963), Moore (1966), and Skocpol (1979). Eisenstadt studied twenty-two preindustrial states that had centralized, impersonal, bureaucratic empires through which political power operated. After a tightly woven and systematic analysis of comparative social, political, and bureaucratic patterns, he concluded that ‘‘in any of the historical bureaucratic societies, their continued prominence was dependent upon the nature of the political process that developed in the society: first, on the policies of the rulers; second, on the orientations, goals, and political activities of the principal strata; and third, on the interrelations between these two’’ (Eisenstadt 1963, p. 362).

Moore’s case studies of revolutions in England, France, the United States, China, Japan, and India sought ‘‘to understand the role of the landed upper classes and peasants in the bourgeois revolutions leading to capitalist democracy, the abortive bourgeois revolutions leading to fascism, and the peasant revolutions leading to communism’’ (Moore 1966, p. xvii). His own sympathies, however, lay in the development of political and social systems that fostered freedom, and he realized the importance of ‘‘a violent past’’ in the development of English, French, and American democracies

(pp. 39, 108, 153). He concluded ‘‘that an independent nobility is an essential ingredient in the growth of democracy’’ (p. 417) yet realized that a nobility’s efforts to free itself from royal controls ‘‘is highly unfavorable to the Western version of democracy,’’ unless these efforts occur in the context of a bourgeois revolution (p. 418).

Skocpol scrutinized the ‘‘causes and processes’’ of social revolutions in France, Russia, and China ‘‘from a nonvoluntarist, structural perspective, attending to international and world-histori- cal, as well as intranational, structures and processes.’’ While doing so she moved ‘‘states—understood as potentially autonomous organizations located at the interface of class structures and international situations—to the very center of attention’’ (Skocpol 1979, p. 33). She concluded that ‘‘revolutionary political crises, culminating in administrative and military breakdowns, emerged because the imperial states became caught in cross-pres- sures between intensified military competition or intrusions from abroad and constraints imposed on monarchical responses by the existing agrarian class structures and political institutions’’ (p. 285).

Underappreciated by theorists of historical sociology is the growing number of studies that apply sociological categories and concepts to the emergence and development of historically significant religious traditions (see Swatos 1977). By doing so, these scholars have surpassed the traditional sociological and historical colleagues who limit their efforts primarily to political and structural issues, especially ones arising during the late eighteenth to twentieth centuries. Swanson (1960), for example, coded material on fifty hunting-and- gathering societies in an effort to connect religion and magic to social structure, and subsequently analyzed relationships between constitutional structures and religious beliefs around the period of the Protestant Reformation (Swanson 1967). The emergence and early development of major religious traditions has received considerable sociological attention. They include, for example, analyses of early Christianity as a social movement (Blasi 1988), as a millenarian movement (Gager 1975; see Lang 1989, p. 339; Meeks 1983, pp. 173–180), and as a dramatically expansive young religion during the first centuries of the Common Era (Stark 1996). Concepts from sociological studies of modern sectarianism have informed historical studies of Mahayana Buddhism (Kent 1982) and

Valentinian Gnosticism (Green 1982). Weberian examinations continue to influence historically grounded studies of numerous world religions, including ancient Judaism (Zeitlin 1984), Islam (Turner 1974), and other religious traditions from around the world (see Swatos 1990). On a grand scale, religion figures prominently in the work of globalization theorist Roland Robertson (e.g., Robertson 1985; see Robertson 1992).

The historically grounded research in the sociology of religion, along with the works of Eisenstadt and others, suggests that future historical sociological studies will continue pushing beyond the confines of modern, macrosociological topics and into a wide range of premodern historical areas. Likewise, historical issues likely will become more consciously developed in microsociological studies (see Abrams 1982, pp. 227–266), and there will appear more sociologically informed historical examinations of cultural development (still exemplified by Elias 1978). Nonetheless, considerable macrosociological research still needs to be performed on historical issues affecting preindustrializing and Third World countries as well as on recent international realignments between forms of capitalism and communism.

Sometimes coupled with communism’s collapse is the reappearance of nationalism and ethnic violence in various parts of the world. The deterioration of the Balkans in what (under Soviet influence) was Yugoslavia, for example, prompted Veljko Vujacic (1996) to develop ‘‘a comparative examination of contemporary Russian and Serbian nationalism’’ by attempting ‘‘to demonstrate the usefulness of some of Weber’s key theoretical ideas on nations, nationalism, and imperialism‘‘(p. 789). Specifically, he tried ‘‘to show how long-term historical and institutional legacies, shared memories, and defining political experiences, played themselves out in the contemporary period, influencing the different availability of mass constituencies in Russia and Serbia for nationalist mobilization under the auspices of new ‘empire-saving coalitions’’’ (p. 789). Despite being faced with the difficult task of utilizing Weberian theory in this comparative context, Vujacic warned, ‘‘there is no need to gloss over the frequently bloody and unpredictable consequences of [people’s] struggles with unduly abstract sociological generalizations. Instead, we should theorize our narrative, while giving contingency its place’’ (p. 790). In essence,

narrative accuracy must not be compromised by the demands of theory building.

Innovative methodological techniques continue to enter the historical sociology realm. As outlined by Roberto Franzosi and John Mohr, two such methodologies are network analysis (mapping ‘‘the connectivities among people, groups, and organizations’’ [Franzosi and Mohr 1997, pp. 145–154]) and content analysis (‘‘the use of formal methods for extracting meanings from textual materials’’ [Franzosi and Mohr 1997, p. 149; see Tilly 1997, pp. 219ff.]). These and other methodologies contribute to the production of respected historical sociology studies on such topics as capitalist expansion, ‘‘the growth of national states and systems of states,’’ collective action (Tilly 1981, p. 44; and see Tarrow 1996 for a review of Tilly’s work), and the sociology of religious development. (Not to be overlooked, however, are studies of both capital–state relations and urban development and poverty [Gotham and Staples 1996].) Discussion will continue over the relative merits of globalization theory, world systems theory, and modernization theories (see Mandalios 1996), and globalization theory likely will expand and modify to include greater emphasis on regional world systems, particularly in East–Southeast Asia (Ikeda 1996). The extent to which Michel Foucault’s historically grounded, poststructuralist work on the relationships among cultural meanings, self-iden- tities, and social control extend into the historical sociology corpus (for example, Foucault 1979, 1980; Dean 1994; see Seidman 1994, pp. 212–233) remains to be seen.

As older sociological methodologies disseminate within history and newer ones enter the discipline, we will continue to appreciate ‘‘the importance of historical sociology in enlarging our understanding of the historical variations in class, gender, revolutions, state formation, religion, and cultural identity’’ (Somers 1996, p. 53). On a practical level, the profile of historical sociology in its respective disciplines will be enhanced as universities extend cross-appointments of faculty, cross-list courses in methodologies and other topics, share theses and dissertation supervisory responsibilities among history and sociology faculties; encourage interdepartmental co-sponsorship of visiting speakers, and generally enhance the learning and training environments for graduate

students and staff. On a professional level, the American Sociological Association continues to sponsor a section in its annual conference entitled ‘‘Comparative and Historical Society.’’

(SEE ALSO: Comparative-Historical Sociology; Event History

Analysis)

Franzosi, Roberto, and John W. Mohr 1997 ‘‘New Directions in Formalization and Historical Analysis.’’ Theory and Society 26:133–160.

Gager, John G. 1975 Kingdom and Community: The Social World of Early Christianity. Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall.

Gotham, Kevin Fox, and William G. Staples 1996 ‘‘Narrative Analysis and the New Historical Sociology.’’

The Sociological Quarterly 37:481–501.

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