1. Positivism and antipositivism in the history of sociological thought

2. Karl Marx and his influence on historical sociological thought

3. From Herbert Spencer to Niklas Luhmann - evolutionism and the problem of social differentiation

4. Max Weber and the issue of religion, rationalization and modernity

5. Émile Durkheim and his influence on structuralism and functionalism (on their adoption but also their criticism).

6. Maurice Halbwachs - the theory of collective memory; J. Assmann

7. Norbert Elias and the civilizing process

8. The influence of structuralist ideas on historical sociology (Fernand Braudel, Michel Foucault)

9. C. Lévi Strauss, structuralism and cultural relativism; C. Geertz

10. Interpretation of the concept of civilization and culture; J. P. Arnason

11. Critique of totalitarianism; Arendt, Popper, Aron

12. Talcott Parsons, structural functionalism and evolutionist theories of social change

13. The theory of Conflict: Coser, R. Dahrendorf, S. Huntington, M. Mann

14. The theory of Social Change - different types of changes; P. Sztompka

15. The new historical comparative sociology: B. Moore, C. Tilly, T. Skocpol, M. Mann

16. Immanuel Wallerstein - dependency theory, world systems theory

17. A. Giddens - Attempts to reconstruct social theory and ways of overcoming traditional dualism.

18. Contemporary modernization theory (post-industrial, postmodernism, second modernity, globalization)

19. The theory of axial time and multiple modernities; Shmuel Eisenstadt

20. Historical sociology of nationalism; E. Gellner, M. Hroch