Overview

In this, a unique history of the America's postwar intellectual, David Paul Haney outlines the developoment of sociology as a discipline and why, given its focus of study, it failed to develop into a force in the intellectual currents of the United States. Arguing that sociologists attempted to develop both a science and an instrument for the spread of humanistic concern about socity, Haney shows how both attempts failed to connect sociology with larger questions of policy and social progress. 

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9781592137138

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Reviews

A wonderful social history of sociology, and at the same time a sociological analysis of the period of the consolidation of what Pierre Bourdieu would call a field. Michael Burawoy This is an important and timely work... [W]hile it is excellent as an intellectual history of the sociological discipline from the late 1940s to the early 1960s, its importance in illuminating questions of the public role of intellectuals in a modern democratic society gives it a far wider significance... This is a fluent, well-constructed, soundly researched and informative work that fills in an important but little-understood aspect of postwar American social, cultural and intellectual history. Metapsychology Online Haney makes a valuable and thoughtful contribution to our discipline's understanding of its own history of public engagement and the dilemmas that emerge from professionalization. Well-written and carefully researched, Haney's book gives us a comprehensive overview of post-war American sociology with an emphasis on the ways that the discipline attempted to overcome its relative marginalization within the North American higher education system and broader intellectual culture. Canadian Journal of Sociology (Online) [V]ery readable...The author's documentation of the debate over sociology's appropriate identity from the 1930s to the 1960s provides rich quotes illustrating the professional arguments about sociology's purpose. Drawing on strong research, Haney deftly argues through the voices of major spokesmen... Recommended. CHOICE, December 2008 [E]ngaging, well-written... Haney has made a valuable contribution to the history of mid-twentieth-century American sociology. - The Journal of American History, December 2008 Haney demonstrates how sociology was remade in a self-conscious effort to insulate the discipline from public discussion of social issues. His arguments...are developed intelligently using new as well as familiar sources... The most compelling theme of this interesting book is how sociologists in the early postwar period found new reasons to be cynical about democracy. - American Historical Review, December 2008 Haney has presented us with a well-written historical narrative of some shifting themes, shifting interests, and shifting affiliations within American sociology in the period from the late 1940s through the early 1960s. -The British Journal of Sociology, June 2009 David Paul Haney's The Americanization of Social Science is a welcome contribution to [the] scholarship. Haney examines the struggle for a coherent professional identity among sociologists between 1945 and 1963. In particular, he focuses on the tension between sociologists' quest for scientific status and academic standing vis-a-vis social relevance and public engagement...In perhaps the most eye-opening chapters in the book, Hanley draws on archival professional correspondences as well as book reviews to capture the mixed feelings and dynamics associated with the marginalization of diffident sociologists. The Journal of Sociology and Social Welfare, Sept 2009

Author Information

David Paul Haney is an Adjunct Professor at Austin Community College and St. Edward's University.

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