Social Science History Research Articles

IN PRAISE OF EDWARD PHILLIPS

The aim of this paper is to rescue the reputation of the much-maligned seventeenth-century English lexicographer Edward Phillips. He has been accused of plagiarizing in his dictionary called New world of English words (1658) from an earlier dictionary, Thomas Blount’s Glossographia (1656), and he has been accused of claiming misleadingly that his dictionary was enriched by the contributions of consultants. Both accusations were originally made by Blount. Examining them both – which requires the use of techniques from the history of the book and the social history of science and technology – leads to the conclusion that neither accusation is true, and that Phillips actually made multiple original contributions to the development of the English lexicographical tradition, particularly in the use of consultants and the handling of technological vocabulary.

Cheiron: The International Society for the History of Behavioral and Social Sciences

Cheiron: The International Society for the History of Behavioral and Social Sciences

Mnemonic multiples: the case of the columbia panel studies.

This article uses the Bureau of Applied Social Research's mid-century book-length panel studies-The People's Choice (1944), Voting (1954), and Personal Influence (1955)-to identify and illustrate a neglected phenomenon in the remembered history of social science: mnemonic multiples. The article describes the way that the Bureau books, originally published into a post-World War II interdisciplinary social science milieu, have since come to be remembered along distinct disciplinary tracks by sociologists, political scientists, and communication researchers. A contextual analysis of references to the Bureau studies in the flagship journals of the three disciplines, from 1960 through 2011, provides tentative support for the mnemonic multiples concept.

Spektorsky and the Fate of His History of Social Philosophy

Evgeny V. Spektorsky (1875–1951) based his monograph, a survey of the history of social science ideas, on his teaching experience at the universities of Warsaw, Kiev, Prague, Belgrade and Ljubljana. The manuscript, finished by mid-1931, was accepted for publication by the Slovenska Matica publishing house on the recommendation of Anton Lajovic, lawyer and composer. Entitled The History of Social Philosophy, it was translated into Slovenian by Josip Vidmar and published in two volumes in 1932 and 1933. The print run was high: 5,000 copies of Volume I and 4,500 copies of Volume II. Spektorsky argued for a genetic analysis of the history of social science thought, which he saw as a treasury of ideas influencing human life. He emphasised the impact of ideas because these had, in his view, left a deeper impact on the history of mankind than scientific studies or proofs of eternal truths. Although critical of Marxism, whose pretensions to a scientific world view he saw as a mere propaganda move, Spektorsky never accepted dogmatic views.

Introduction: the social sciences in a cross-disciplinary age.

As studies of the history of social science since 1945 have multiplied over the past decade and a half, it has not been unusual for commentators to present cross-disciplinary ventures as a byproduct of the disciplinary system and to contrast the stability of disciplines with the highs and lows of interdisciplinary relationships. In contrast, this special issue takes the view that cross-disciplinary ventures should be considered not so much as efforts to loosen up the disciplinary yoke, but as an alternative form of production and dissemination of social scientific knowledge. Paradoxically, the relationship between cross-disciplinary ventures and the disciplinary system appears as one of complementarity and not of dependence. The essays in the special issue provide examples of ways to reconsider what can be called the interdisciplinary chaos.

The Policeman as a Worker – or Not? - International Impulses and National Developments within the Swedish Police, ca. 1850-1940

ESSHC Vienna 2014, 10th European Social Science History Conference, Vienna, Austria, 23 April - 26 April 2014.

"Made Up from Many Experimentall Notions": The Society of Apothecaries, Medical Humanism, and the Rhetoric of Experience in 1630s London†.

This article examines an important new manuscript discovery: a set of lectures delivered at the Society of Apothecaries in 1634 by four members of the Society. No evidence of the intellectual and methodological assumptions of the apothecaries in this period has previously been known; the article contextualizes the lectures, and identifies the authors-a prominent group of apothecaries centered on the controversial John Buggs and the botanist Thomas Johnson. It then proceeds to discuss the contents of the lectures, which consist, to a remarkable extent, of reflections on the nature of physic and pharmacy inspired by the works of sixteenth- and seventeenth-century medical humanists. The apothecaries used the resources of medical humanism to raise the status of pharmacy as a medical discipline, and to argue for the proficiency of the apothecary as a fully fledged physician. Moreover, they emphasized the role of operative arts and used the rhetoric of "experiment" and "experience" in ways that might seem, on first impression, to foreshadow the "new science" that would soon emerge in England. As such, the lectures allow us to make not only some major revisions to existing accounts of the apothecary-physician relationship and the intellectual assumptions behind it, but also to some prominent recent literature in the social history of science and the history of the concept of "experimental philosophy."

The historical social science of tourism

History holds a special place in the social sciences. Social sciences are historical sciences and the study of tourism is no exception. This paper offers some remarks on the historical reflexivity in tourism studies and raises questions about links between knowledge and tourism using several examples such as the Touring Club de France. It calls for increasing interdisciplinary approaches that take into account the historic context of the phenomena they study.

What Makes the History of Capitalism Newsworthy?

What Makes History of Capitalism Newsworthy? Capitalism Takes Command: The Social Transformation of NineteenthCentury America. Edited by Michael Zakim and Gary J. Komblith. (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2012. Pp. viii + 358. Cloth, $97.00; paper $32.00.)Capitalism may be in crisis as an economic system, but it is thriving as a subject within historical profession. The of now organizes a book series at Columbia University Press, a seminar program at Newberry Library, a MOOC at Cornell University, a graduate field at University of Georgia, and a tenure line at Brown University. Undergraduate courses on American capitalism are filling lecture halls at Princeton, Florida, and Loyola University Chicago, while New School for Social Research has launched its Heilbroner Center for Capitalism Studies. The topic has provided thematic unity to recent annual meetings of Social Science History Association and Organization of American Historians. American Historical Association's state-of-the-field volume American History Now, of capitalism stands alongside established subfields like women's and cultural history. A front-page article last year in New York Times carried headline, In History Class, Capitalism Sees Its Stock Soar.1 is news? one could hear many early republic historians ask with incredulity. The study of capitalism has long been a central concern of our field. Forty years ago, labor history began recovering experiences of first generation of American wage laborers in communities like Paterson, Rockdale, and Lowell. Very soon, artisans of every trade had a historian to recount their declining economic power in face of capitalism's rise. Graduate students in 1980s cut their teeth on farmers' account books and rural mentalites, and few qualifying exam lists lacked a section on the transition to debate. The generation coming of age in 1990s had the market revolution looming over its head, and in wake of a Journal of Early Republic special issue on capitalism in 1996, social historians continued to argue with Gordon Wood and Joyce Appleby over compatibility of capitalism and democracy. Over last decade, SHEAR conferences have featured sessions on capitalism as a force of liberation or destruction, as a top-down or bottom-up phenomenon, and as ideology or a structure. As often as not, experienced commentators have alerted younger presenters to classic works of Samuel Rezneck, Oscar and Mary Handlin, or George Rogers Taylor, extending field's historiographical genealogy ever deeper into past. If academic generations define themselves against their immediate predecessors, how many revisionist historians have humbly discovered that their scholarly grandparents had in fact been exploring same questions half a lifetime earlier? This new of capitalism might be a testament to good branding (appropriately) rather than original insight, less a field than a fad.Scholars identifying themselves with new of capitalismand I count myself in these ranks-make no pretense of having discovered a field. Many historians working under this rubric are quick to credit their undergraduate teachers and graduate advisors: Elizabeth Blackmar, Barbara Fields, and Eric Foner at Columbia, or JeanChristophe Agnew and Michael Denning at Yale, to name only two clusters of influential faculty who have been talking about capitalism for decades. For those interested in parlor games, younger historians of capitalism can reach Agnew or Blackmar in about half steps required to get to Kevin Bacon. Columbiaand Yale-trained students have been at forefront of institutionalizing of capitalism elsewhere; none with more success than Sven Beckert, whose Program on Study of Capitalism at Harvard has placed recent graduates into faculty positions at University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill, UC-Berkeley, Cornell University, and University of Pennsylvania. …

Valenzuela y Zea: Científicos Criollos en la Independencia Americana

El objeto de esta investigación se centró en los criollos Zea y Valenzuela en la faceta de los cambios y participación que presentaron en el período de la Independencia americana. A estos dos criollos neogranadinos les unió José Celestino Mutis, en su formación científica y ubicación profesional, y llegaron a ocupar la Subdirección de la Real Expedición Botánica deNueva Granada. El método se centró en la historia social de la ciencia y la metodología utilizada se sustentó en la historia comparada en indicadores de análisis como: formación, trayectoria profesional, participación política y análisis de los discursos relevantes que pronunciaron en el proceso de la independencia. Las fuentes se localizaron en archivos de España, Colombia y Venezuela. En conclusión, la vida política de estos dos botánicos se une en un discurso político mediado por el pensamiento ilustrado de impulsar cambios en la educación y el desarrollo de la industria y el comercio, donde las ciencias útiles con el estudio de los recursos naturales de su patria marcaban el derrotero de la nueva concepción para el imaginario de nación de la élite criolla neogranadina.

Toneladas de Diplomacia num mar sem fronteiras: discussões sobre os poderes navais de Argentina, Brasil e Chile, no início do século XX

A evolução dos poderes navais da Argentina, Brasil e Chile no início do século XX foi um tema que cruzou fronteiras não só de países, mas também dos setores das sociedades destas três nações, envolvidos em sua discussão: intelectuais, diplomatas, militares. Hoje, é um tema que cruza fronteiras entre áreas do conhecimento, como História da Ciência, da Técnica e da Tecnologia, História Diplomática, História Política, Ciências Sociais, assim como estudos de Política Externa. Este artigo discorre sobre a coincidência entre o roteiro das Conferências Pan-Americanas do início do século XX, que foram iniciativas dos Estados Unidos, e o lançamento e execução dos programas de reequipamento naval dos três países, num momento em que boa parte de sua intelectualidade discutia essas conferências sob um viés anti-americano. Também analisa o quanto essa discussão se relacionava mais a símbolos de poder naval do que ao poder real desses países.

Changing Social Relations between Science and Society: Contemporary Challenges

Social history of modern science, particularly the way it acquired social legitimacy, clearly depicts the science and society relationships emerging from the time of Galileo. The social institution of science has evolved as one of the most powerful, highly influential and sought out institutions. Knowledge as public good; peer review of science; prominence attached to open publications; and premium placed on professional recognition and scientific autonomy remained the hall mark of science for the last three centuries. Based on this ethos of science, the social institution of science evolved a unique social contract between science and society in the last six decades. As we enter the second decade of twenty-first century, the social institution of science is undergoing a major change. Three societal forces are responsible for the change: (i) globalisation; (ii) industrial and post-industrial society; and (iii) climate change. What is at stake? Is there a significant change? Is it transforming the very social institution of science? And what implications this has for our contemporary and future society? These are some of the important issues, which will be addressed in this article.

This Could Be the Start of Something Big: Linking Early Managerial Choices with Subsequent Organizational Performance

This Could Be the Start of Something Big: Linking Early Managerial Choices with Subsequent Organizational Performance

French Africa, 1947–48: Reform, Violence, and Uncertainty in a Colonial Situation

Previous articleNext article No AccessArticleFrench Africa, 1947–48: Reform, Violence, and Uncertainty in a Colonial SituationFrederick CooperFrederick Cooper Search for more articles by this author PDFPDF PLUSFull Text Add to favoritesDownload CitationTrack CitationsPermissionsReprints Share onFacebookTwitterLinkedInRedditEmail SectionsMoreDetailsFiguresReferencesCited by Critical Inquiry Volume 40, Number 4Summer 2014Around 1948: Interdisciplinary Approaches to Global Transformation, edited by Leela Gandhi and Deborah L. Nelson Article DOIhttps://doi.org/10.1086/676416 Views: 668Total views on this site Citations: 3Citations are reported from Crossref © 2014 by The University of Chicago. 0093-1896/14/4004-0003$10.00. All rights reserved.PDF download Crossref reports the following articles citing this article:Daniel W. Clayton The Passing of “Geography’s Empire” and Question of Geography in Decolonization, 1945–1980, Annals of the American Association of Geographers 110, no.55 (Mar 2020): 1540–1558.https://doi.org/10.1080/24694452.2020.1715194Rory Pilossof, Gary Rivett Imagining Change, Imaginary Futures: “Conditions of Possibility” in Pre-Independence Southern Rhodesia, 1959–1963, Social Science History 43, no.0202 (Feb 2019): 243–267.https://doi.org/10.1017/ssh.2019.1Tasha Rijke-Epstein Neglect as effacement: the multiple lives of the Jardin Ralaimongo, Mahajanga, Madagascar, Africa 88, no.22 (May 2018): 352–384.https://doi.org/10.1017/S000197201700095X

Putting Habitus in its Place: Rejoinder to the Symposium

In this response to my critics, I amplify the conceptual clarification and methodological stipulation of habitus begun in ‘Homines in extremis’ to help us move from a sociology of the body as socially construc- ted object to a sociology from the body as socially construc -ting vector of knowledge, power, and practice. The specification of habitus by membership in collectives, attachment to institutions, and analytic purpose makes it a flexible multi-scalar notion with which to construct the epistemic individual and account for both reproduction and change, conformity and creativity, as well as self-revision. For this, we must reject theological interpretations that rigidly lock habitus into Bourdieu’s framework; avoid conflating the formal properties of the notion with its concrete features in specific settings and cases; and distinguish between the rhetorical invocation of his concepts (‘speaking Bourdieuese’) and their effective deployment in the construction of the empirical object. As embodied and embedded capacity, habitus brings temporality, depth, and desire to the analytic epicenter. It reminds us that the social world is not transparent, open-ended, and instantaneous, but endowed with gravity, opacity, and asymmetry. Treating the sentient and skilled organism as fount of both social intelligence and sociological acumen can help historical social science connect with enactive psychology and recover the carnality of action that conventional accounts of social life routinely erase.

There's just no talking with the past

This brief piece, based on a paper delivered at the 2012 UK Social Science History Conference, questions the merits of the common metaphor of communicating as a theorization of ‘doing history’. It claims that, following the rejection of the idea of objectivity in its most radical forms, the idea of conversing or communicating with the past has become increasingly important to explanations of what goes on in historical research, interpretation, and writing. The idea is not without problems of its own, however. Where it positions the past as if indeed somehow an active agent, able to converse with the historian in meaningful ways, the particularity of the past as past seems to deny that possibility. In order to understand the persistence of the communicative metaphor (even in the face of the obvious contradictions involved), the piece relates it to mistaken assumptions in historical thinking that continue to sustain it – namely that of conflating the past with history and that of confusing negotiations of personal memory with ‘experience’ of a historical past. In attempting to deal with these conflicting intuitions, it draws, among others, on a distinction between the creative imagination and any real access to the ‘otherness’ of the past. Ultimately – it will be shown – at stake in this debate is the capacity of the past to intervene on our understandings in any (disruptive) way.

Emotional Kindergarten: Cross-cultural Research about Leadership of Creative Personalities

Leadership is one of the oldest phenomena in the history of social sciences and management. Yet, as a research area still it has lots of virgin fields, one of them surely being the challenge of leading creative personality's in other words complex personalities. In art creating projects, such as dance performance projects, a choreographer realizes the creative process with his/her fellow artists e.g. dancers, light designers, sound designers etc., leading them towards a unique goal of the project. This research aims at bringing a better understanding of leadership challenges in such complex art creating projects. The curiosity of success in leading people, especially the people whose work is much related to their inner selves and emotions and understanding the needs of creative personalities and the leadership style required to move them forward are the very core of this paper. The background of the study, reasons behind the need of research, methodology with the first insights from the researcher's case study works and preliminary findings of the research is defined.

A Field of Magpies: Disciplinary Emergence as Modus Vivendi in English Studies

Amid undeniable institutional pressures, one more strictly intellectual aspect of the chronic crisis in English studies is its perennial state of emergence toward a disciplinarity that, in Thomas S. Kuhn’s sense, it never achieves. Since its early nineteenth-century inception the field has instead borrowed tools, procedures, and standards, immethodically yet retentively, from other fields it has found engaging and adaptable. Notable waves of change that have irrigated the field include, in rough historical sequence, philology, seminary education, psychology, social science, history, anthropology, linguistics, philosophy, and sociology—none of them long dominant yet none ever quite superseded, each leaving its mark on literary scholarship and criticism. Analytic and interpretive practices incubated in English having at times flowed back with a difference into their sponsoring disciplines, it is incumbent on English studies now to see that these practices flourish in the field of media studies that seems likely to succeed it during the century ahead.

The Capitalist Epoch

This presidential address argues that capitalism must be understood as an epochal phenomenon, that is, as a historically specific and temporally limited form of life with social and temporal dynamics that set it off from previous eras of history and that are not destined to last indefinitely. Capitalism's most distinctive feature—sustained secular economic growth in per capita terms—has brought great benefits to the human race, not only increasing economic well-being but endowing people with bigger, stronger, and more resilient bodies and radically increased life spans. It has also made possible an astounding increase in society's technical, educational, and scientific powers. The experience of sustained economic growth has led to a particular sense of time as open-ended and progressive—making possible modern historical consciousness. Meanwhile, the relentless commodification of social relations under capitalism has tended to free people from domination based on personal status, but also to subject them to more abstract forms of domination. Creative destruction, which is capitalism's key mechanism for producing sustained economic growth, has also produced an unmasterable cyclical pattern of boom and bust, creating new forms of insecurity at the same time that it tends to lift people out of absolute poverty. Capitalist development has always been spatially uneven. There is reason, however, to think that the capitalist era may be approaching its end. The shape of the postcapitalist era will depend on how well we collectively make use of the powers that the capitalist era has produced—science and technology, to be sure, but also the critical historical consciousness that lies at the heart of social science history.

Становление и развитие Social Science History в 1970–1980‑е гг.

Становление и развитие Social Science History в 1970–1980‑е гг.