Princeton University
Department of Sociology
Spring '94
Soc 304: Social Change
Professor: Miguel
Angel Centeno
Office hours: Mon 2:30-5:30 (2-C-5 Green Hall)
MW 10:00-10:50
Weds 12-1:30 (Mathey Dining Hall)
"Men (sic) make their own history, but they do not make it just as they please;
they do not make it under circumstances chosen by themselves, but under
circumstances directly encountered, given and transmitted from the past. The
tradition of all dead generations weighs like a nightmare on the brain of the
living."
Karl Marx
"The United States has accomplished [the extermination of the indian race] with
singular felicity; tranquility, legally, philanthropically...without violating a
great principle of morality in the eyes of the world. It is impossible to destr
men (ditto) with more respect for the laws of humanity."
Alexis de Toqueville
"Welcome to the working week/ I know it don't thrill you/ I hope it won't kill
you."
Elvis Costelo
"The Revolution is not a dinner party."
Mao Tse Tung
"If the Americans don't like living ninety miles from a socialist country, why
don't they move?"
Fidel Castro
"Everything other than power is an illusion".
Sendero Luminoso slogan
"Bring back our wall."
Popular T-shirt sold in Berlin
"For of the last stage of this cultural development, it might well be truly said
'Specialists without spirit, sensualists without heart; this nullity imagines th
has attained a level of civilization never before achieved'."
Max Weber
"Kill all the professors."
Lenin
NB: Books have been ordered at University Store. Various copies are also
available in the Firestone Reserve (Level A). See me if there are any problems.
READ THIS: Unless you have obtained the instructor's permission or
a dean's excuse, late papers will not be accepted.
Introduction
January 31: Scope of Class
February 2: Sociology and the Study of History
Required Reading: Eric Wolf, Europe and the People without History,
pp. 3-72.
Suggested Reading: C. Wright Mills The Sociological Imagination (for
inspiration) and Anthony Giddens Introduction to Sociology (for the
details); Michael Mann, The Sources of Social Power.
The European Invasion, (Part I)
February 7 & 9: Conquest & Genocide
Required Reading: Eduardo Galeano, Genesis, all.
February 14: Slaves and Other Commodities
Required Reading: Wolf, 195-231, 232-261.
Suggested Reading: Wolf, pp.131-157; Alvin Josephy, ed., America in 1492;
Alfred Crosby, The Colombian Exchange; Eric Williams Capitalism and
Slavery; C.L.R. James, The Black Jacobins; A. Abu Boahen, African
Perspectives on Colonialism; Journal of African History, Vol. 30, Nos. 1, 3;
Gilberto Freyre, The Masters and the Slaves.
The Great Transformation in the West
February 16, 21, 23: Explaining the Industrial Revolution
Required Reading: Karl Polanyi, The Great Transformation, pp. 33-222.
February 28, March 2: New Forms of Labor
Required Reading: E.P. Thompson, The Making of the English Working
Class, pp. 189-450.
March 7, 9 Revolution, Bourgeoisie, and Bureaucracy
Required Reading: Maurice Zeitlin, The Civil Wars in Chile, all.
Suggested Reading: Eric Hobsbawm's trilogy Age of Revolution, Age of
Capital, and Age of Empire; Marx & Engels, The Communist Manifesto; Max
Weber, "Bureaucracy" in Gerth and Mills, From Max Weber and his The
Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism; Heidi Hartman, "Capitalism,
Patriarchy, and Job Segregation by Sex", and Stephen Marglin, "What Do
Bosses Do?" (mimeos from instructor); Barrington Moore, Social Origins of
Dictatorship & Democracy
TAKE HOME MID-TERM DUE IN CLASS ON MARCH 9th
The European Invasion, (Part II)
March 21, 23: Imperialism, Modernization, and Underdevelopment
Required Reading: Bernard Makhosezwe Magubane, The Political
Economy of Race and Class in South Africa, pages TBA; Wolf, pp.
310-353.
March 28, 30: Independence, Neocolonialism, and Poverty
Required Reading: Salman Rushdie, Midnight's Children, all.
Suggested Reading: See me for specific countries. For a general
introduction see Charles Wilber, ed., The Political Economy of Development
and Underdevelopment;Fernando Cardoso & Enzo Faletto, Dependency and
Development in Latin America; World Bank, World Development Report
(Annual); Gereffi & Wyman, Manufacturing Miracles.
RE-WRITES OF MID-TERM EXAM DUE IN CLASS ON MARCH 30th
1989 and all that
April 4, 6: The Nature of the System
Required Reading: Slavenka Drakulic, How We Survived Communism
and Even Laughed, all.
April 11, 13: Revolution or Collapse?
Required Reading: Vaclac Havel, Living in Truth, pages TBA.
Suggested Reading: Murray Feshbach and Alfred Friendly, Jr., Ecocide in
the USSR; Nancy Bermeo, ed., Liberalization and Democratization; Victor Nee
and David Stark, eds., Remaking the Economic Institutions of Socialism;
Adam Przeworski, Democracy and the Market; Helen Carrere d'Encausse, The
End of the Soviet Empire.
East Asian Exceptionalism
April 18, 20: The New Model?
Required Reading: Daedalus, Spring 1993, China in Transformation,
pages TBA.
Suggested Reading: Frederic Deyo, ed., The Political Economy of the New
Asian Industrialism; Alice Amsden, "Taiwan's Economic History", Modern
China, 5: 3, 1979; Chalmers Johnson, MITI and the Japanese Miracle; Robert
Wade, Governing the Market.
Conclusion
April 25, 27: New Walls & New Hatreds
Required Reading: Packet given in class.
FINAL EXAM WILL BE TAKE-HOME.
sociolog@princeton.edu sept '94