Qualitative Sociology, Vol. 15, No. 2, 1992 REVIEW ESSAY Historical Sociology and Freedom Marietta Morrissey Freedom: VoL 1, Freedom in the Making of Western Culture, by Orlando Patterson. Basic Books, 1991, 487 pages. INTRODUCTION American historical sociology has had its most vibrant and visible pe- riod since the 1970's. The revival in Marxist thought by sociologists seems in particular to have led to an interest in historical methodologies, with comparative sociologists among their most prominent and successful prac- titioners. Dependency and world systems theorists have made especially no- table strides in historical sociology. The work of Wallerstein, Abu-Lughod, Skocpol and others has shown the empirical richness and theoretical depth a comparative historical perspective can bring to the discipline. The success of historical sociology has produced a set of methodo- logical tendencies that shape its current development. First, much recent historical sociology, especially the comparative work alluded to above, takes a materialist perspective on social life. That is, the economic base of society is invoked to explain ideological and culture trends. The historical sociology of ideas, on the other hand, is relatively undeveloped. Second, and perhaps more problematic, is a tendency for historical sociology to be more history and less sociology. Bennett Berger (1991) noted recently that as historians have recognized important works of his- torical sociology, historians have become their audience. Documents, re- cords, travel diaries are becoming the data of historical sociology, with larger sociological principles traditionally drawn from primary historical data, of decreasing interest to historical socicologists. 213 © 1992 Human Sciences Press, Inc,