Main Currents in Sociological Thought: Volume One: Montesquieu, Comte, Marx, de Tocqueville: The Sociologists and the Revolution of 1848

The first volume of the landmark study, tracing the emergence and formation of sociological thought from the French liberal school to the Marxists

Main Currents in Sociological Thought remains a foundational synthesis in the field. In this first part of his magisterial two-volume survey, Raymond Aron embraces an expansive definition of sociology that merges empirical inquiry with historical and social analysis. At its core, Aron’s work is an engagement with the very question of modernity: How did the intellectual currents that emerged in the eighteenth century shape the modern political and philosophical order? With scrupulous fairness, Aron examines the thoughts and arguments of the discipline’s major social thinkers to discern how they answered this question.

Volume 1 explores three traditions: the French liberal school of political sociology, represented by Montesquieu and Tocqueville; the Comtean tradition, anticipating Durkheim in its elevation of social unity and consensus; and the Marxists, who posited the struggle between classes and placed their faith in historical necessity. Written with his customary lucid elegance of thought and style, Aron’s work is essential reading for students across the social sciences.

Raymond Aron was the foremost political and social theorist of post-World War II France. Born in Paris in 1905, he studied at the École Normale Supérieure. He taught at the Sorbonne from 1955 to 1968, and also maintained a long commitment to journalism, first in Le Figaro then in L’Express. He died in 1983.