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