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The article attempts to examine the main topics in the sociological study of housing from the end of the Second World War to the 1980s & distinguishes the following five: (1) housing systems & housing policy, (2) the relationship between social stratification & housing differentiation, (3) the relationship between the family & housing, (4) the relationship between housing & neighbourhoods, & (5) housing & architecture as components of culture. During this period the sociological study of housing was strongly influenced by the changes occurring in the housing situation. The post-war housing shortage in Europe & the state's heavy involvement in tackling this problem, along with the rapid rise in the importance of social housing, led to an emphasis on the study of housing systems, housing policy, the methodology of quantitatively measuring housing needs, & the role of the state in the housing sphere, with a heavy stress on the economic dimension of housing issues. A shift to qualitative research on housing, i.e. studying the relationship between the family & housing & the housing needs of the elderly & new families, occurred as the housing shortage declined. Culturally oriented housing research followed, as a response to the search for new identities & for genius loci. As housing has become commodified in Europe & social housing has almost disappeared over the past twenty-five years, there has been revival of the study of the social consequences of narrowly defined economic concepts of housing policy.

The following comments compare the present orientations of Czech sociology with recent developments in European sociology. The analysis of sociology in Europe shows that the attention of European sociologists has shifted to social theory & social philosophy, sociology of culture, media, gender & feminism, political sociology, nationalism, ethnicity, & racism. Czech sociology, in the opinion of the author, still does not pay sufficient attention to such pressing issues of Czech society as national identity, nationalism, value transformations, the role of traditions, & European integration processes.

The major part of Ernest Gellner's work ranks among the few contemporary attempts at a global theory of the development of mankind, or, in his words, 'the structure of human history.' Gellner's theory is based on two main assumptions: first, the succession of three radically & generically different types of societies: (1) hunter-gatherer society, (2) agrarian society, 3) industrial society; & second, the assumption that in all these societies it is necessary to distinguish three categories of human activity: (A) the economy; (B) power, & (C) knowledge. In his last books he added a fourth component: culture & organization. The possible variations of mutual relationships between the economy, power, & knowledge in each of the developmental phases is what forms the first part of Gellner's thoughts on the philosophy of history. The second, & perhaps more important, part consists of his thoughts on the forms & causes behind the transition from agrarian to industrial society. The emergence of industrial society cannot be easily explained. Therefore Gellner prefers to speak only of the circumstances surrounding this development. They can be summarized in the following way: a restrained state, not interfering too much in the life of the people; Protestantism & its ethic & lifestyle; a developing, if modest & not too robust, technology. The mixture of these three circumstances created a situation out of which an industrial, contractual, pluralist, & open society emerged in Europe. In this article, the author challenges the interpretation of Gellner's theory as being a kind of non-Marxist historical materialism, & describes it rather as structural functionalism applied to history. At the same time, the author points to several problems that can be found in Gellner's sociological theory of history, & devotes the latter part of the paper to outlining four specific problem areas.