Macrohistory: Essays in Sociology of the Long Run

Randall Collins

Published by Stanford University Press 1999

Macrohistory

Essays in Sociology of the Long Run

Randall Collins

https://doi.org/10.1515/9781503617957

Overview
Contents

About this book

This book explores the accomplishments of the golden age of “macrohistory,” the sociologically informed analysis of long-term patterns of political, economic, and social change that has reached new heights of sophistication in the last decades of the twentieth century. It describes the scholarly revolution that has taken place in the Marxian-inspired theory of revolutions, the shift to a state-breakdown model in which revolutions, rather than bubbling up from discontent below, start at the top in the fiscal strains of the state. The author links revolutions to military-centered transformations of the state, and reviews how he used this theory in the early 1980s to predict the breakdown of the Soviet empire. He goes on to show the implications of viewing states and societies from the outside in, including the geopolitical patterns that affect the legitimacy of dominant ethnic groups and thus determine the direction of ethnic assimilation or fragmentation. Another application is the author’s new theory of democratization, which asserts that democracy depends not merely on a widening of the franchise but on a geopolitical pattern favoring federated structures of collegially shared power. Using this new theoretical tool, the author argues that Anglophone scholars have polemically misinterpreted German history, and that the roots of the Holocaust cannot be determined by German-bashing but must be attributed to processes that affect all of us. Other essays generalize about the historical dynamics and transformations of markets. Going beyond Weber’s Eurocentric model, the author proposes a more general theory that explains the origins of capitalism in Japan on an independent but parallel path.

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Frontmatter Publicly Available Download PDF	i
Acknowledgments Publicly Available Download PDF	v
Contents Publicly Available Download PDF	vii
List of Figures Publicly Available Download PDF	ix
Introduction: The Golden Age of Macrohistorical Sociology Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	1
1. Maturation of the State-Centered Theory of Revolution and Ideology Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	19
2. The Geopolitical Basis of Revolution: The Prediction of the Soviet Collapse Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	37
3· "Balkanization" or "Americanization": A Geopolitical Theory of Ethnic Change Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	70
4. Democratization from the Outside In: A Geopolitical Theory of Collegial Power Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	110
5. German-Bashing and the Theory of Democratic Modernization Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	152
6. Market Dynamics as the Engine of Historical Change Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	177
7. An Asian Route to Capitalism Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	209
Appendix A. How Simulating a Compact Theory Can Reproduce the Tangled Pathways of History Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	239
Appendix B. Borkenau's Geopolitics of Language and Cultural Change Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	259
Notes Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	267
Bibliography Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	291
Index Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	307

Language: English
Publisher: Stanford University Press
Audience: College/higher education;
Pages
- Main content: 328

eBook

Published: January 21, 2022
ISBN: 9781503617957