Explain The Emergence Of Sociology In Modern Society

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This essay will primarily focus on the way in which sociology emerged as an attempt by humans, to explain and understand ‘modern society’. Sociology has been defined as the scientific study of human life, social groups, whole societies and the human world. It aims to explain the relationships that exists between groups, organisations, and societies and their environments. During a time of great social change during the 18th and 19th century, coined by Karl Polanyi as the ‘great transformation’, modern society materialised (Morrison, 2006). Movements in political structure, economics and individualism resulted in the emergence of sociology, as a means…show more content…
Sociological writings from Marx, Durkheim, and Weber have provided many perspectives, theories and descriptive views on the emergence of these political changes, in an attempt to understand their effect on the modernisation of society (Morrison, 2006). In the late 18th century, during the height of the French revolution, new social and political conditions overturned the old political and economic ways of life. This change in the political system would prove to have colossal implications on the transition of the entire world into modern society. Unpaid labour, economic and social inequality and social hierarchy were key political characteristics of the feudal society which encompassed France in the years prior to the revolution (Morrison, 2006). Political change and reform was inevitably called for by the French population, due to extreme taxes and dues, high inflation, low crop harvests and an overwhelming nationwide sense of economic distress and crisis. A revolutionary committee expressed their demands to France’s political body, the Estates General, which would in turn, prove

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