Beyond the problem of meaning: Robert Wuthnow's historical sociology of culture

Abstract

The revival of historical sociology in the last twenty years has focused on class, state, revolution and political mobilization, family and demography. New attention to cultural factors a central part of earlier historical sociology is overdue. Robert Wuthnow's Communities of Discourse is a major effort to meet this need.2 It reflects also the current rapid growth of the sociology of culture. Especially in America, however, sociology of culture suffers from a strange disciplinary deformation. For some reason, many sociologists think they must repress the interpretation of meaning in order to be rigorous. Sociologists of culture, therefore, often try to study cultural phenomena without attention to the substance or content of culture. Wuthnow is no exception.