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Back in the late 1980s, Norbert Elias (1987, p. 224) expressed concern that the ‘retreat’ of sociologists into the present moment was leading to the ‘impoverishment’ of the discipline. He argued that ‘[t]he immediate present … constitutes just one small momentary phase within the vast stream of humanity’s development, which, coming from the past, debouches into the present and thrusts ahead toward possible futures’. We do not need to agree with Elias’s aspiration to ‘a universal theory of society’ or consider that such a theory is either possible or desirable to acknowledge his underlying point—that ‘[p]resent conditions may be seen more clearly by comparison with conditions of the past’.

Item Type:	Non Refereed Article
Keywords:	history, methodology, housing studies
Research Division:	Studies in Human Society
Research Group:	Sociology
Research Field:	Social Theory
Objective Division:	Expanding Knowledge
Objective Group:	Expanding Knowledge
Objective Field:	Expanding Knowledge through Studies of Human Society
UTAS Author:	Flanagan, K (Dr Kathleen Flanagan)
UTAS Author:	Jacobs, K (Professor Keith Jacobs)
ID Code:	131107
Year Published:	2019
Deposited By:	Office of the School of Social Sciences
Deposited On:	2019-03-01
Last Modified:	2019-06-12
Downloads:	0