There are certain moments that few social scientists cherish. One of these comes on being asked to specify the historical achievements of our work as a whole. What fundamental questions about social life can we confidently say we have resolved? Which of our theoretical reflections, which research discoveries, are most apt to endure – or, more importantly, deserve to endure? In short, have we any reasonable basis to claim progress in theoretical understanding, any grounds for belief that our understandings are at all more profound or comprehensive than those of our intellectual predecessors?

The unsettled state at the theoretical core of our disciplines has a variety of symptoms. One is our troubled relationship to our own intellectual past. As Merton noted long ago, the ways in which students learn social science differ fundamentally from those in which “hard” science is learned. Training in our subjects always requires some acquaintance with certain classic texts. No student of revolution or social stratification, for example, no matter how technically sophisticated, can afford to ignore the original writings of Marx. Somehow, our intellectual heritage is never fully encapsulated in textbooks. Perhaps because we are so divided or so ambivalent about what deserves to endure from our past, we cannot leave it to others to codify that past for us.