Editor's introduction: An invitation to historical sociology.

This articles presents the topics discussed in the June 1998 issue concerning sociology. All of the articles here are historical, but not merely so. All look beyond the bare chronicling of events to the larger and wider impact of those events on the sociological enterprise. Gary Jaworski examines receptions to Simmel's work at two universities in order to illumine the open-ended, constructed and contested nature of the sociological tradition. William Buxton presents one little known, and done previously unpublished, work by Parsons on Georg Simmel in an effort to expand dialogue on the significance of Simmel in Parson's thought. Bernard Barber takes up a similar theme by focusing on how Parsons' thinking about social systems gradually evolved. The editor's contribution, finally, points to the influence of developments in psychology on the famous experiment in Social Relations at Harvard. The emphasis in all articles is the unfolding of ideas and the consequence of interpretative decisions, including roads not taken. In view of Talcott Parson's worldwide reputation and influence, his lost manuscript on Simmel may attract considerable scholarly attention. Indeed, Professors Don Levine, Kiyomitsu Yui, Charles Camic and Hans Joas and others have been planning a series of papers on this manuscript that may appear at a special issue of Theory, Culture and Society or elsewhere.