A Historiography of the Modern Social Sciences

A Historiography of the Modern Social Sciences includes essays on the ways in which the histories of psychology, anthropology, sociology, economics, history and political science have been written since the Second World War. Bringing together chapters written by the leading historians of each discipline, the book establishes significant parallels and contrasts and makes the case for a comparative interdisciplinary historiography. This comparative approach helps explain historiographical developments on the basis of factors specific to individual disciplines and the social, political, and intellectual developments that go beyond individual disciplines. All historians, including historians of the different social sciences, encounter literatures with which they are not familiar. This book will provide a broader understanding of the different ways in which the history of the social sciences, and by extension intellectual history, is written.

Brings together essays on the historiography of the major social sciences - psychology, anthropology, sociology, economics and political science
Provides a clear idea of the parallels and contrasts between different social sciences
Presents a comparative approach that accounts for historiographical developments within disciplines on the basis of either disciplinary or extra-disciplinary factors

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'… this volume could be better considered to be a reference work for the historiographies of the modern social disciplines, and, if so, one I do recommend.' Marcel Boumans, Journal of the History of Economic Thought

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Product details

Published: October 2018
Format: Paperback
ISBN: 9781107438972
Length: 258 pages
Dimensions: 230 × 152 × 16 mm
Weight: 0.4kg
Contains: 1 b/w illus. 1 table
Availability: Available

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Contents

1. Introduction Roger E. Backhouse and Philippe Fontaine
2. History and historiography since 1945 Kevin Passmore
3. History of anthropology Henrika Kuklick
4. Periphery toward center and back: scholarship on the history of sociology, 1945–2012 Charles Camic
5. History of psychology since 1945: a North American review James H. Capshew
6. Contested identities: the history of economics since 1945 Roger E. Backhouse and Philippe Fontaine
7. A disciplinary history of disciplinary histories: the case of political science Robert Adcock.

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Contributors

Roger E. Backhouse, Philippe Fontaine, Kevin Passmore, Henrika Kuklick, Charles Camic, James H. Capshew, Robert Adcock

Editors

Roger E. Backhouse , University of Birmingham
Roger E. Backhouse is Professor of the History and Philosophy of Economics at the University of Birmingham, where he has taught since 1980. He has held a part-time position in the Erasmus Institute of Philosophy and Economics, and in 2007 he was Ludwig Lachmann Research Fellow in the Department of Philosophy at the London School of Economics. He has also taught at University College London, Keele University, the University of Bristol, the University of Buckingham, and the University of Oporto. He currently holds a Leverhulme Trust Major Research Fellowship to write an intellectual biography of Paul Samuelson. He is the coeditor of The History of the Social Sciences since 1945 (Cambridge, 2010); The Unsocial Social Science?: Economics and Neighboring Disciplines since 1945 (2010); and The Cambridge Companion to Keynes (Cambridge, 2006). He is author of The Ordinary Business of Life (2002) and The Penguin History of Economics (2002). He has written for a number of journals, including Economica, the Journal of Economic Perspectives, History of Political Economy, the Journal of the History of Economic Thought, and the Journal of Economic Methodology. He has been review editor for the Economic Journal, editor of the Journal of Economic Methodology, and associate editor of the Journal of the History of Economic Thought.
Philippe Fontaine , Ecole Normale Supérieure de Cachan
Philippe Fontaine is Professor of Economics in the Department of Economics at École Normale Supérieure de Cachan. In 2003–4, he was Ludwig Lachmann Research Fellow in the Department of Philosophy at the London School of Economics and Political Science. He is the coeditor of The History of the Social Sciences since 1945 (Cambridge, 2010); The Unsocial Social Science?: Economics and Neighboring Disciplines since 1945 (2010); and The Experiment in the History of Economics (2005). He has written for a number of journals, including the British Journal of Sociology, Economics and Philosophy, History of Political Economy, Isis, the Journal of the History of Economic Thought, and Science in Context. He has been the associate editor of Revue de philosophie économique. In 2005, he received the Best Article Award from the Forum for History of Human Science. In 2008, he was the recipient of the prix d'excellence en sciences sociales from Foundation Mattei Dogan/CNRS.

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