Martineau: An Introduction
Harriet Martineau (1802-76)
Harriet Martineau was born on the 3rd July in 1802 in Norwich in East Anglia. She was the daughter of a textile manufacturer from Norwich.
It is something of a scandal that Harriet Martineau is still not given a central place as a founder of sociological thought.
It might be thought that such a status might be accorded her if only for the fact that it was she, who, in 1851, translated the work of the so-called founder of sociology Auguste De Comte into English. Nor is it inconsequential to note that after complaining that Comte's text was full of 'tedious repetitions', she decides to effectively rewrite his edition and include in her 'translation' her own ideas of sociology and the 'laws of society'.
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