A Revolution in Classical Scholarship?

Abstract

In a review (JHS lxxxvi [1966] 205 f.) of P. A. Stadter's Plutarch's historical methods: an analysis of the Mulierum virtutes (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1965), Mr T. F. Carney, who was at that time Fulbright Visiting Scholar in the Department of Political Science of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, claimed that the book ‘analyses somewhat dated problems with only partially up-dated tools’ and that the ‘actual findings of the book replicate what is already known’. Although Mr Carney takes it for granted that his readers know what the ‘up-dated tools’ are, at the end of his review he drops the key words ‘content analysis’, in which, according to him, Stadter had engaged unwittingly, but obviously without success.Inasmuch as the book in question grew out of a dissertation suggested and directed by this writer, it may perhaps be allowed to reply to the rather serious charges raised in this review, charges which are unprecedented in the history of this Journal and which, if they were justified, could have far-reaching implications. This writer must confess that he was first baffled both by the degree of hostility displayed and by the criticisms, which, though specific, are often murky; but he was baffled even more by the general accusation of ‘only partially up-dated tools’ and inappropriate use of ‘content analysis’, a term he had never previously encountered. But this writer soon found out that content analysis is ‘a research tool in mass communication’ (R. W. Butt and R. K. Thorp, An Introduction to Content Analysis [A Publication of the University of Iowa School of Journalism, Iowa City, Iowa, 1963] 1), ‘a research technique for the objective, systematic, and quantitative description of the manifest content of communication’ (Bernard Berelson, Content Analysis in Communication Research [The Free Press, Glencoe, Illinois, 1952] 18 [still the chief book in the field]); and it became clear that Mr Carney wore the social scientist's hat when he wrote his review.