Charles Tilly (original) (raw)

Much of my daily work involves helping young people learn practical procedures of historical analysis. I have no intention here of cataloging all the tools, techniques, and tours de main we use at one time or another. I remember vividly how historical sociologist George Homans used to bellow "People do social science in the damnedest ways!" (George enjoyed bellowing because it jarred people into arguing with him, a sport in which he delighted and excelled. In this case, however, his exhortation, guidance, and practice coincided.) So long as it expands our range of viable explanations at reasonable cost, I will endorse any morally defensible sociological method. Nor do I plan here to make the case for a particular combination of genre, ontology, explanatory logic, and mechanisms. Astute readers have no doubt already scented my personal preference for process analysis, relational realism, mechanism-based explanations, and relational mechanisms, but I hope that colleagues will continue to do their best with competing programs. That will allow the next generation of historical sociologists to compare the results of contrasting intellectual strategies.

Instead of attempting to fine-tune other people's historical investigations, let me offer some general tips on undertaking historical analysis from a social scientific perspective.