Against Epochalism: An Analysis of Conceptions of Change in British Sociology

The article conducts a historical sociological analysis of the appeal of epochalist modes of social thought, especially as manifested in contemporary British sociology. It lays out key features of contemporary epochalist thinking, showing how it breaks from older evolutionary models of social change which root future events in past conditions.The article argues that one important reason for the power of epochalist thinking is due to the emergence of a distinctive social science research infrastructure based around the sample survey and the interview. I argue that these provide mechanisms for deriving measures of change internally to the research process itself, rather than through the external comparison of separate sources as practised by historians. The article further pulls out the way that the rapid rise of British sociology in the period 1950—70 entailed its championing of the `new' as a means of claiming intellectual legitimacy over the `traditional' social sciences, and seeks to encourage debate about the peculiarities of British sociology.