The weight of history

Reviving ‘big picture’ sociology in the 21st century

Abstract

I reflect on key arguments of my recent book, The Return of Inequality: Social Change and the Weight of the Past (Savage 2021). I restate the need for sociologists to offer ‘big picture’ accounts of social change, of the kind that canonical social theorists of modernity attempted during the later 19^th century and into the 20^th century. I use the particular, but high profile, case of UK non-domiciled tax-payers to reflect on how we need can recognise the contemporary significance of historical forces, and thereby expand our time horizons and recognise that many of the social forms that have been endemic throughout human history – elite power, city states, imperial territorial forms, and entitlement and patronage – are returning forces.