Building a Textbook Tradition: Sociology in Britain, 1900–68

Abstract

Contrary to what is often assumed, and as shown in Chapter 4, numerous approaches to sociology arose and prospered in Britain from the late nineteenth century and had contributed to the formation of a lively sociological community.¹ As Chris Husbands shows in Chapter 8, sociology was established as an undergraduate subject at the LSE and was also taught, at the London School of Economics (LSE) and elsewhere, in courses on ‘social science’, ‘commerce’, ‘social administration’, and social work. It is not generally realised that many textbooks were produced to support this teaching. A distinct textbook tradition crystallised during the 1920s as the number of students grew and an interested general audience began to appear. These textbooks carried a mainstream approach to the subject that was developed and refined through the 1930s and 1940s. This was not fundamentally altered until after the Second World War, when US structural-functional sociology began its major influence and dominance of the field until the proliferation of new and radical perspectives in the 1960s.