British Sociology's Lost Biological Roots : A History of Futures Past

For some time, the social sciences have been attacked by those who believe that biology, not society or culture, best explains human behaviour and social organization. While critics, such as evolutionary psychologists, speak disdainfully of a 'Standard Social Science Model', many social scientists react by decrying the reductionism of biological views. With positions so polarized, it is easy to forget that the social sciences and biology were not always seen as different spheres. When, how and why did the split come about? This book seeks answers in the late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century British debates about sociology, when L. T. Hobhouse, a thinker who battled to keep biological and social science separate, was awarded the UK's first chair of sociology and editorship of The Sociological Review, the country's first sociology journal. Moreover, by recovering Hobhouse's vision for sociology, as well as those of his rivals, including the Scottish biologist and sociologist Patrick Geddes and the eugenicist Francis Galton, this book shows how the history of British sociology can inform discussions about the discipline's future.

CHRIS RENWICK Lecturer in Modern History at the University of York, UK.