You Got an Ology?

Abstract

In the decades after the Second World War, sociology was a vogue subject in British universities, eclipsing more traditional disciplines such as history and political philosophy. New departments sprang up in the expanding universities. Academics in other subjects reacted in different ways, some embracing sociology in the hope that some of its cachet would rub off on them, others denouncing it for not being a real subject. By the 1970s, though, the fortunes of sociology were dramatically reversed, as radical sociologists clashed with their more empirical colleagues, and were blamed by the press for inciting student protest. The radical sociologist became a folk devil, epitomized by Malcolm Bradbury’s The History Man (1975), and was particularly demonized by the supporters of Margaret Thatcher. The Thatcher governments attempted to reduce sociology’s funding in higher education, but they found it harder to reverse its more diffusive influence over other disciplines and popular culture as a whole.