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One of the most striking characteristics of sociology in recent years is the speed with which sociologists in the English-speaking world — including while we"re on the subject Bauman — have jettisoned post-modernism. It is hard to believe that in a period of less than 20 years postmodernism went from being a revolutionary practice to an art form, from an art form to a sociological sensibility, from a sociological sensibility to a domesticated sociological perspective and finally became a form of contempt. Indeed, if postmodernism began as a programme of disruption in sociology, it is today a way of thinking that is largely derided. No less interesting is the concurrent revival of the ideas of the "founding fathers' in sociology. One need only mention the emergence over the last ten years or so of publications such as Classical Social Theory (Craib, 1997), Classical Sociology (Turner, 1999), Theorizing Classical Sociology (Ray, 1999), Classical Sociological Theory (Calhoun et al., 2002) and Understanding Classical Sociology: Marx, Weber, Durkheim (Hughes, Sharrock and Martin, 2003) (reprinted six times since 1995 and now its second edition) and the Journal of Classical Sociology (2001) to make the point. A further parallel is suggested by the fact that a revival in empirical studies has taken place in sociology, which has also had a substantial impact on recent developments in sociological thought.

DOI: 10.1057/9780230290457_5

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