New Left Review I/1, January-February 1960

John Rex

Sociological Tradition

Consciousness and Society, by H. Stuart Hughes, published by MacGibbon and Kee, 1959 pp 433, 30/-.

nineteenth century social thought in Great Britain rested upon two complementary sets of philosophic assumptions: those of positivism and utilitarianism, and, though the twentieth century has seen both sets of assumptions challenged in nearly every field of investigation, the need for a radical reorientation of sociological enquiry has hardly been recognised in this country. Thus Professor Hughes new book Consciousness and Society, which surveys the work of Europe’s leading sociologists and social philosophers in the period 1890–1930, and introduces their ideas to a non-specialist British public for the first time, could have quite revolutionary significance.

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