Norbert Elias

A Sociology of History

Abstract

The sociology of history could be understood in two aspects: one is the sociology of historical problems, and the other is the sociology of historical process of a society's civilization, culture or thought, and knowledge. In these two aspects, German sociologist Norbert Elias is one of the most important sociological thinkers of the twentieth century. The main theme of this paper is to cull out the theoretical and methodological key points in Elias' voluminous, yet, scattered publications. The first section is devoted to a general analysis of his works from the above two viewpoints. In section two is a treatment of Elias' main theoretical concept of social and historical analysis-namely, his figurational theory- and takes it as a methodology in the examination of historical problems. The concluding section attempt to find the theoretical and problematic unity of Elias' civilizing theory as a study of historical process.