The Origins of American Social ScienceFocusing on the disciplines of economics, sociology, political science, and history, this book examines how American social science came to model itself on natural science and liberal politics. Professor Ross argues that American social science receives its distinctive stamp from the ideology of American exceptionalism, the idea that America occupies an exceptional place in history, based on her republican government and wide economic opportunity. Under the influence of this national self-conception, Americans believed that their history was set on a millennial course, exempted from historical change and from the mass poverty and class conflict of Europe. Before the Civil War, this vision of American exceptionalism drew social scientists into the national effort to stay the hand of time. Not until after the Civil War did industrialization force Americans to confront the idea and reality of historical change. The social science disciplines had their origin in that crisis and their development is a story of efforts to evade and tame historical transformation in the interest of exceptionalist ideals. This is the first book to look broadly at American social science in its historical context and to demonstrate the central importance of the national ideology of American exceptionalism to the development of the social sciences and to American social thought generally. |
Contents
The discovery of modernity | 3 |
The American exceptionalist vision | 22 |
Establishment of the social science disciplines | 53 |
Francis | 77 |
The threat of socialism in economics and sociology 886 | 98 |
The liberal revision of American exceptionalism | 143 |
Marginalism and historicism in economics | 172 |
Toward a sociology of social control | 219 |
From historicopolitics to political science | 257 |
history and politics 266 Professional division 282 Scientific | 297 |
New models of American liberal change | 303 |
Scientism | 390 |
Epilogue | 471 |
Bibliographical note | 477 |
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academic Adams Albion Small American exceptionalism American history American political American social science analysis Beard behavior Bentley Burgess capitalism capitalist century chap Charles Civil Clark classical classical economics competition conception conflict conservative Cooley culture democracy democratic Dewey's disciplines ethical evolution evolutionary exceptionalist gentry Giddings Gilded Age Goodnow groups Henry Carter Adams Herbert Baxter Adams historians historical change historicism historicist historico-politics idea ideal idem ideology individual industrial institutions intellectual interest John Dewey labor laws liberal marginalist Merriam method Mitchell modern society moral neoclassical normative organization Park philosophy political economy political science political scientists positivism positivist principles problem professional progress psychology radical realism reform republican Ross scientific Seligman Small social control social science social scientists socialist sociologists sociology statistical Sumner theory Thomas Thorstein Veblen tion tradition turn University of Chicago University Press Veblen vision Wesley Clair Mitchell William Graham Sumner York