Not much attention has been paid to the retreat of sociologists into the present. This retreat, their flight from the past, became the dominant trend in the development of sociology after the Second World War and, like this development itself, was essentially un-planned. That it was a retreat can become clearly visible if one considers that many of the earliest sociologists sought to illuminate problems of human societies; including those of our time, with the help of a wide knowledge of their own societies’ past and of earlier phases of other societies. The approach of Marx and Weber to sociological problems can serve as an example.
Norbert Elias, ‘The Retreat of Sociologists into the Present’, Theory, Culture and Society, 4 (2), June 1987, p. 223