Social Science for What?
Social Science for What?

Author: Mark Solovey

Publisher: MIT Press

Published: 2020-07-07

Total Pages: 409

ISBN-13: 0262358751

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How the NSF became an important yet controversial patron for the social sciences, influencing debates over their scientific status and social relevance. In the early Cold War years, the U.S. government established the National Science Foundation (NSF), a civilian agency that soon became widely known for its dedication to supporting first-rate science. The agency's 1950 enabling legislation made no mention of the social sciences, although it included a vague reference to "other sciences." Nevertheless, as Mark Solovey shows in this book, the NSF also soon became a major--albeit controversial--source of public funding for them.

Logics of History
Logics of History

Author: William H. Sewell Jr.

Publisher: University of Chicago Press

Published: 2009-07-27

Total Pages: 425

ISBN-13: 0226749193

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While social scientists and historians have been exchanging ideas for a long time, they have never developed a proper dialogue about social theory. William H. Sewell Jr. observes that on questions of theory the communication has been mostly one way: from social science to history. Logics of History argues that both history and the social sciences have something crucial to offer each other. While historians do not think of themselves as theorists, they know something social scientists do not: how to think about the temporalities of social life. On the other hand, while social scientists’ treatments of temporality are usually clumsy, their theoretical sophistication and penchant for structural accounts of social life could offer much to historians. Renowned for his work at the crossroads of history, sociology, political science, and anthropology, Sewell argues that only by combining a more sophisticated understanding of historical time with a concern for larger theoretical questions can a satisfying social theory emerge. In Logics of History, he reveals the shape such an engagement could take, some of the topics it could illuminate, and how it might affect both sides of the disciplinary divide.

Social Science and Historical Perspectives
Social Science and Historical Perspectives

Author: Jack David Eller

Publisher: Taylor & Francis

Published: 2016-10-04

Total Pages: 311

ISBN-13: 1317198255

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This accessible book introduces the story of ‘social science’, with coverage of history, politics, economics, sociology, psychology, anthropology, and geography. Key questions include: How and why did the social sciences originate and differentiate? How are they related to older traditions that have defined Western civilization? What is the unique perspective or ‘way of knowing’ of each social science? What are the challenges—and alternatives—to the social sciences as they stand in the twenty-first century? Eller explains the origin, evolution, methods, and the main figures, literature, concepts, and theories in each discipline. The chapters also feature a range of contemporary examples, with consideration given to how the disciplines address present-day issues.

A Historiography of the Modern Social Sciences
A Historiography of the Modern Social Sciences

Author: Roger E. Backhouse

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Published: 2014-09-22

Total Pages: 259

ISBN-13: 1107037727

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A Historiography of the Modern Social Sciences exposes parallels and contrasts in the way the histories of the social sciences are written.