Journal of the History of the Behavioral Sciences by Barbara Ross; History of the HumanSciences by Arthur Still; Irving VelodyReview by: Hamilton CravensIsis, Vol. 81, No. 2 (Jun., 1990), pp. 306-308Published by: The University of Chicago Press on behalf of The History of Science SocietyStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/233709 .

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306 REVIEWS OF JOURNALS-ISIS, 81: 2: 307 (1990)

the historic context and the relations of power between producer and collector in all such assemblies of exotic objects.

Two imbalances in coverage might be noted. The first is geographical. Of the thirty-nine papers in these five volumes, twenty deal with American anthropology and archaeology, fourteen with the British tradition, three with the French, and two with the German. There are only hints or brief allusions to the distinguished anthro- pological traditions elsewhere, such as in Italy, Spain, Mexico, China, Japan, and the USSR.

Second, little attention is given in these volumes to the point of view of the native peoples, the "Others," as they are so often called, who were the subjects of anthropo- logical inquiry. Edwin L. Wade discusses the response of potters and weavers in the Southwest to changing anthropological and tourist interest (Vol. 3), and James Clifford hints at the response of the Dogon to Mar- cel Griaule (Vol. 1). Otherwise there is lit- tle suggestion that native peoples have had ideas and agendas of their own in relation to the whole anthropological enterprise into which, willy-nilly, they have been drawn, and that their participation has sometimes been transforming.

Nevertheless, this is a splendid series. JOAN MARK

Journal of the History of the Behavioral Sciences. Editor: Barbara Ross, Psychol- ogy Department, University of Massachu- setts-Boston, Harbor Campus, Boston, MA 02125. (Brandon, Vt.: Clinical Psychol- ogy Publishing.) Quarterly. Subscription: $45 (members of APA and other national professional organizations); $90 (institu- tions).

History of the Human Sciences. Editors: Arthur Still and Irving Velody, University of Durham, Research Group for the His- tory of the Human Sciences, Elvet River- side, New Elvet, Durham DH1 3JT, En- gland. (London: Routledge.) Three issues a year. Subscription: ?25 (U.K. individuals), $50 (U.S. individuals), ?28 (individuals elsewhere); ?38 (U.K. institutions), $72 (U.S. institutions), ?40 (institutions else- where).

In the last several decades the social and behavioral sciences have won increasing attention from professionally trained histo-

rians as well as from scientists interested in the history of their own disciplines. One could say that these fields of knowledge first arose about two centuries ago, as at- tempts to understand the state, the market- place, and the parameters of human nature and conduct; thus it seems curious that professional historians have shown so little interest in their history until relatively re- cently. Perhaps a reason for the recency of the interest has been the newfound skepti- cism toward elites in the last several de- cades. Be that as it may, these areas of in- quiry now seen well established within the historical profession. The two journals under review here exemplify the likely per- manency of these fields of study.

The Journal of the History of the Behav- ioral Sciences (JHBS) began publishing in 1965. For the first ten years its editor was Robert I. Watson. Watson had moved from Northwestern University to the University of New Hampshire in 1963 to inaugurate a doctoral program in the history of psychol- ogy from within the department of psychol- ogy. He was a trained psychologist and a self-trained historian of psychology. From the first the JHBS carried publications by historians as well as by behavioral scien- tists writing about the history of their own fields. Indeed, in the third issue, in 1965, George W. Stocking, Jr., discussed the problem of method for the professional his- torian, who might wish to study the past for the past's sake, and the scientist, who might prefer to study the past for the sake of the present ("On the Limits of 'Present- ism' and Historicism in the Historiography of the Behavioral Sciences," JHBS, 1965, 1:211-218). These different interests show no sign of abatement-nor should that be expected, for they would seem to represent a conflict parallel to that between the politi- cal historian and the politician, the histo- rian of physics and physicist, and the like. One could even argue that the conflict, if conflict be the appropriate word, is healthy and constructive, at least in the long run.

Watson's successor, upon his retirement from the University of New Hampshire, was Barbara Ross, a psychologist at the University of Massachusetts, Boston. She has served as editor ever since. No schol- arly organization sponsors the JHBS, which is privately owned by its publisher, the Clinical Psychology Publishing Com- pany of Brandon, Vermont; Ross's tenure is a matter between her and the company.

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REVIEWS OF JOURNALS-ISIS, 81: 2: 307 (1990) 307

She has attempted to broaden the kinds of articles and topics covered in the journal in the last fifteen years from the history of psychology and psychiatry core to which Watson seemed firmly committed in his tenure.

This greater openness is reflected to an extent in the survey that I conducted of the JHBS. I read alternating volumes from 1965 through 1986, Volumes 1 through 22. These volumes published 320 scholarly ar- ticles, of which 296 could be easily placed into several elementary categories. Not surprisingly, given the history of these fields of knowledge, most articles dealt with modern times: of the 296 articles, only 55 addressed topics before 1800, 64 focused on the nineteenth century, and 177 dealt with issues from 1900 to the present (i.e., the 1950s).

Nor is it especially surprising that the JHBS seems to have attracted or preferred articles in the history of some fields far more than others. The history of psychol- ogy accounted for 183 of the 296 articles, the history of psychiatry for 49 pieces, the history of sociology for 36, general behav- ioral science (two or more disciplines) and anthropology for 12 each, the history of economics for but 2, and medicine and po- litical science for 1 each. A third point, slightly more surprising, was the rough par- ity between articles on American and Euro- pean phenomena, 144 and 140, respec- tively, with the balance in some sense unclassifiable (i.e., comparative, some other part of the world, etc). A more pre- cise look at concentrations of interest in disciplines, time periods, and national cul- tures showed that recurring areas of inter- est included German psychology from the 1850s to the 1930s; psychology in America from the late nineteenth century to the present; British psychology from the early nineteenth century to the twentieth; Ameri- can, Austrian, and German psychiatry; and American sociology, especially of the pro- gressive era and of contemporary times.

Overall the articles in the JHBS strike me as useful; they are based on original sources and are cogently argued. Articles of varying length, from a page or so to per- haps twenty, might appear in the same number. The articles reflect the disparate agendas of the JHBS's constituencies. Bar- bara Ross has always wished for an even broader array of topics and subjects. Al- most nine of every ten submissions are

turned away-a reasonably normal figure in humanities journals. Perhaps the journal's most interesting feature is its book review section, in which authors are allowed space to respond to those who review their books. There are several book reviews in every issue, and the July issue is devoted entirely to book reviews. While there is no small amount of plaintiveness in some of the authors' responses, in more instances than one might expect the "dialogues" are actually helpful and constructive, at least for interested third parties and probably for the principals as well.

As for balance and proportion, of four- teen articles published in 1989, four were written by historians, five by psychologists, two by philosophers, and one each by a professor of education, a sociologist, and a psychiatrist. Lest anyone believe that one can take the disciplinary identities of the authors too rigidly, all of these pieces eas- ily meet the standards of methodological and analytic competence that historians and other scholars expect in scholarly arti- cles, and the traces of "gee whiz" history sometimes evident in early issues of the JHBS have disappeared.

In some ultimate sense the JHBS has an identifiable constituency-or, more pre- cisely, several such constituencies-all of whom assume, it seems clear, that there is a certain historical content that their field covers, essentially the natural science pre- decessors of the contemporary behavioral and social sciences. It has not occurred to them to question whether such linkages have actually existed or whether it is mean- ingful to posit them.

Much less can be said, at least in one sense, about the History of the Human Sciences (HHS), for it only began publish- ing in May 1988. Its circulation, at 130 worldwide, is but a tenth that of the JHBS. It has three issues a year and so far has published eighteen scholarly articles, seven review essays, and several dozen book re- views in the four issues that the publisher -Routledge, of London-sent me for this review. While the HHS can and does pub- lish articles whose topical and chronologi- cal focus would suit the JHBS, the younger journal also appears hospitable to articles that might not even be submitted to the JHBS. The editors, who operate out of the Research Group for the History of the Human Sciences at the University of Dur- ham, in England, make it pretty clear that

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308 REVIEWS OF JOURNALS-ISIS, 81: 2: 307 (1990)

their notion of what they cover is quite broad. For them the "human sciences," like the German Geisteswissenschaften, in- clude such disciplines as sociology, psy- chology, and anthropology: "Unlike 'social sciences' it suggests a critical and historical approach which transcends these special- isms and links their interests with those of philosophy, literary criticism, history, aes- thetics, law, and politics," the editors pro- claimed in their initial number ("Editorial," HHS, 1988, 1:1-5, on pp. 1-2). And indeed HHS contrasts with JHBS in many impor- tant ways, beginning with the handsome- and expensive-format of the former, in- cluding its illustrations. The history of the human sciences means the use of the arts, of history, of literary criticism; indeed, the first number of Volume 2 is devoted to the "new" art history. Roger Smith's stimulat- ing article "Does the History of Psychology

Have a Subject?" will more than likely raise blood pressure among some on this side of the Atlantic because of the prickly and sophisticated questions he poses. Yet other articles could be found in the JHBS, for example, those on the University of Pennsylvania clinical psychologist Lightner Witmer and the Berlin Academy under Frederick the Great. Historians in England and on the Continent often do not take for granted numerous propositions that we, or most of us, in America regard as axiomatic, and it is that sense of otherness that stimu- lates and excites me, even as the familiarity and methodological rigor of the JHBS seem so reassuring. I for one am glad that both of these journals now exist, for they can pro- vide many opportunities for intellectual ex- change and leadership in the future.

HAMILTON CRAVENS

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