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Constructing a cautionary tale: when sociologists study history reply to professors Curtis and Grabb *.

Article Excerpt
READ ON ITS OWN, the rejoinder by professors Grabb and Curtis might seem to suggest that my article was concerned mainly with their recent book, Regions Apart (2005: 47). This was not the case. My article (CRSA/RCSA, 42.3: 267-82) was as much concerned with Professor Lipset's argument as theirs, and a central claim was that if the debate between Lipset and themselves had truly been driven by the stated goals (i.e., to assess Canadian/ American value differences or the lingering effects of the American Revolution on American culture) then both sides would have paid more attention to certain things than they did. I also argued that the debate has gone on for so long because it was fuelled by ideological concerns, namely, by Lipset's view that American democracy is the best form of democracy and the claim by professors Grabb and Curtis that the best sort of democracy is the sort found in English-speaking societies generally.

Their rejoinder also de-emphasizes themes that otherwise characterize the main body of their work and that were the basis of my critique. They do not discuss, for example, the four core values--liberty, legal equality, popular sovereignty, pluralism--that are so central to the discussion in Regions Apart. Missing as well is what I consider to be their core theoretical argument, that is, how these four core values emerged in England during the Middle Ages and how they made England different from societies on the Continent. In their rejoinder professors Curtis and Grabb also distance themselves from the suggestion that that they see the democratic traditions of English-speaking societies as being "better" than the democratic traditions...

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