Methods of social study,

by Sidney Webb

In Methods of Social Study Sidney and Beatrice Webb describe in detail how they conducted their investigations into social history and institutions - from the collection, recording and classification of the data (both documentary and oral), through the processes of hypothesis and analysis, down to the preparation of the final report. The Webbs were in many respects pioneers, and what they achieved and the way in which they achieved it are of an importance that has been increasingly recognised as the passage of times gives us perspective. Their constant concern was to ensure that their work would be 'scientific'. They stress the need in scientific research for complete objectivity, to be achieved in their case by keeping their historical and sociological studies wholly separate from their political writings. Because the first drafts for the book were made by Beatrice in 1921 and the final text was written by Sidney in 1931/2, one can also see expressed here, more clearly than elsewhere, the different temperaments of the two collaborators.

263 pages, Hardcover

First published November 28, 1975

About the author

Sidney James Webb, 1st Baron Passfield was a British socialist, economist, reformer and a co-founder of the London School of Economics. He was one of the early members of the Fabian Society in 1884. He wrote the original Clause IV for the British Labour Party.
He served as both Secretary of State for the Colonies and Secretary of State for Dominion Affairs in Ramsay MacDonald second Labour Government in 1929.
The Webbs were supporters of the Soviet Union until their deaths. Their books, Soviet Communism: A New Civilisation? (1935) and The Truth About Soviet Russia (1942) give a very positive assessment of Joseph Stalin's regime. Marxist historian Al Richardson later described Soviet Communism: A New Civilization? as "pure Soviet propaganda at its most mendacious".