Abstract

TORRES, Esteban. The Decline of the Narrative Approach in Historical Sociology: Toward the Restoration of an Intellectual Project. Sociológica (Méx.) [online]. 2018, vol.33, n.93, pp.9-52. ISSN 2007-8358.

This article analyzes the development since the beginning of the 1980s of the narrative current in U.S. historical sociology, its central characteristics, and its core methodological resources and concepts. The author demonstrates how this current, led by Andrew Abbot, William Sewel, Margaret Somers, and Larry Griffin, began its slow decline when questions once again arose about capitalism in the social sciences sparked by the 2008 global economic crisis. The article offers evidence of both the time-based and spatial reductionism involved in this approach, even though the current has pretensions of causing a break. This limitation is shown based on its failure to upgrade modern social theory.

Keywords : social change; sociological theory; historical sociology; narrative perspective; social explanation.

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