John H. Goldthorpe is Official Fellow at Nuffield College, University of Oxford, a Fellow of the British Academy, a Foreign Member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, and an Honorary Fellow of the Royal Statistical Society.

Introduction; 1. The Beginnings: Graunt and Halley; 2. Quetelet and his Critics; 3. The English Statisticians: Galton, Pearson and Yule: Appendix: The English Statisticians and the Cambridge Economists; 4. The Sample Survey Specialists: Kiaer, Bowley and Neyman; 5. Weber and the Concept of Action; 6. From Columbia to Chicago: Ogburn and Sociology as Science; 7. From Chicago back to Columbia: Stouffer, Lazarsfeld and Merton: Appendix: The Missing Link? - Karl Popper; 8. Duncan and Sociology as a Population Science; 9. The Return to the Concept of Action and Micro-Macro Relations: Coleman and Boudon; 10. Conclusion: Progress and Prospects.