Timeline, Simple

Basic time/event/idea maps of social theory

Students should develop a basic mental map of the history of the “sociological” thought. Ideally, this means introducing a few new figures, movements and ideas and claiming a few known ones for “sociology” and locating these on existing mental maps of history of western civilization students have picked up over the years. Realistically, though, that map is often missing or full of gaps so we have to spend a little time on it in this class.

Period, LYMK: Landmarks and Thinkers	When	Related events, topics, issues
	~600 BCE
Antiquity – Renaissance At least an awareness that the Pre-Socratics, Plato, Aristotle, Augustine, Aquinas, etc. had some ideas about humans and human society.		Classical Greece Founding of three religions Settling of central/northern Europe Middle ages/Feudalism/Renaissance/Enlightenment/Mercantilism
	1500 CE
Enlightenment Pre-Sociologists Recognition that “sociology” starts with the likes of Machiavelli - The Prince (1469–1527), Hobbes - Leviathan (1588–1679), Locke, Montesquieu, Rousseau, Smith, Hume, Condorcet.		English Civil War Enclosure Movement European overseas exploration Harvard College founded 1636 Yale founded 1701 American/French Revolution Steam Engine
	1800 CE
Marx Locate Marx in the 1840-1870 period. Communist Manifesto at 1848. Capital later.		Congress of Vienna/Napoleonic Wars Industrial Revolution Colonialism Revolutions of 1848
	1875 CE	First sociology course in English taught at Yale by William Graham Sumner
Mid/late 19th – Early 20th century classics Recognize intellectual revolution running from Darwin (1859) and Spencer to Durkheim, Weber, Simmel, Freud (c 1920)		Railroads and Telegraph First wave feminism Dreyfus affair World War I
	1925 CE
Pre-WWII American Theory Chicago School, R Park, Thomas, Znaniecki		Automobile, telephone, radio World War II Holocaust Second wave feminism
	1945
Post-war Theory American: exchange, symbolic interaction, ethnomethodology, Parsons, Merton, Homans, Goffman, Garfinkel European Critical Theory		Civil Rights, New Social Movements Television Anti-colonialism, nationalism Sexual revolution Cold War Rise of welfare state Third wave feminism
	1980
Contemporary Theories POMO, feminist, cultural studies, identity politics, post-colonialism, rational choice, convergence in social science, computational social science		Collapse of communism New Social Movements "Coming Out All Over" globalization Third way 9/11