In 1972, I wrote a paper called “Economic Determinism and Structural Change,” which purported not only to refute Karl Marx and reorganize Max Weber but also to offer the outlines of a better general theory of social stratification and social change. The paper began to develop into a short book. It would contain a general theory supported by a few case studies, including historical ones. Later I decided that the book would set forth a sweeping theory of the world history of power.

But while developing these delusions, I rediscovered the pleasure of devouring history. A ten-year immersion in that subject reinforced the practical empiricism of my background to restore a little respect for the complexity and obduracy of facts. It did not entirely sober me. For I have written this large history of power in agrarian societies, and I will follow it shortly with Volume II, A History of Power in Industrial Societies, and Volume III, A Theory of Power – even if their central thrust is now modest. But it gave me a sense of the mutual disciplining that sociology and history can exercise on each other.

Sociological theory cannot develop without knowledge of history. Most of the key questions of sociology concern processes occurring through time; social structure is inherited from particular pasts; and a large proportion of our “sample” of complex societies is only available in history. But the study of history is also impoverished without sociology. If historians eschew theory of how societies operate, they imprison themselves in the commonsense notions of their own society.