History as Social Science ed. by David S. Landes, Charles Tilly, Howard F. Cline, and: The Historian and the Computer by Edward Shorter (review)

80 THE CANADIAN HISTORICAL REVIEW allusionand in trenchantcomment- as,for example,in his judgmentof the relativeprofundityandmodernityof Nietzscheand Marx, and hiswarningto Christians ofhowmuchofNietzsche's viewoftheworldtheytakeonin adopting hislanguage of 'values.'On a numberof fundamental, if familiar,assumptions of technological culturehe bothexpresses an appropriateconcern andevokes it. But the connections betweenthe ideaswhichhe expounds are generally very loose. And oftenenough he offersno argumentat all for the conclusions which hedraws.How 'remembering tradition'canbea pathto wisdom for menwho havehadthecourage - asProfessor Grantsays theyshould - to faceNietzsche's 'discovery' of therelativism of all values is simplyleft a mystery. The way in whichNietzsche's positive doctrines couldintelligibly ariseout of hisnegative ones issimilarly leftobscure, asisthecrucialconnection between 'remembering' and 'thinking'in Professor Grant'sownprescription for our spiritualills.Most puzzling to thisreviewer, however, ishisappropriation of termslike'historicity,' andeven'history,' withoutqualification or explanation, for an entirelyactivist, manipulative, future-regarding sortofhumanexperience. Very different existential andmoralpronouncements wouldsurely havebeencalledfor if the'history' in terms ofwhichtimeistobeinterpreted hadbeenthought of fromthebe•nningassomething whichgoes ontoa considerable extentovermen's heads, and whichit takesa greatdeal of hindsightto understand(Professor Grant'sbold claimthattheVietnamWar waspredictable looks itselflikea pieceofhistorical hindsight, although notobviously a reputable one,unsupported asit isby any account of humannatureor theoryof historical inquiry). Only onceisit mentionedthat historyis something 'suffered'aswell as'made'by men.Professor Grantdoes offerussome interesting reflections on thegenesis andimportance of somecontemporary attitudes to history.He canscarcely claim,however,to have discussed directly,and for its own sake,the question 'what it meansto conceive theworldasanhistorical process, to conceive timeashistory andman asan historical being.' W.H. DRAY Trent University HistoryasSocialScience. EditedbyDAVID $. LANDES, CHARLES TILLYjHOWARD F.CLINg, et al.,Englewood Cliffs,NJ, Prentice-Hall, I97i. Pp.viii, I5•. $5.95 cloth,$I.95 paper. The Historian and the Computer. EDWam> SHORT•.R. Englewood Cliffs,Nj, Prentice-Hall,I97I. Pp. x, I49. $5.95. The common message of thesestimulating books is that historians needmore rigorous training in social-science methods andtheories. TheLandes-Tilly volume ,HistoryasSocial Science, presents a wide-ranging discussion of theintellectual (andemotional) state ofthehistory profession, especially inthegraduate schools, and pinpoints currentneeds andfutureprospects of the behavioural approach inhistory. Shorter's book, TheHistorian andtheComputer, isa simple introduction to computer usage for historians andwill appealto those convinced byLandes andTilly totrytheirhandat quantitative methods. REVIEWS 81 HistoryasSocial Science isa reportof the HistoryPanelof theBehavioral andSocialScience SurveyCommittee, conducted in I967-9 underthe auspices of theNational Academyof Sciences and the SocialScience ResearchCouncil. The panel'stask,which is ably fulfilled, was to assess the current statusof the social-science andinterdisciplinary sectors within the discipline of history and to offersuggestions for the future'in orderto promoteand improvethis kind of work for thosewho want to do it' (p. x). In additionto their own broadexperience in the field,the panelists (Landes,Tilly, Howard F. Cline, SigmundDiamond,SamuelP. Hays,and ThomasC. Smith) drew upon a I968 questionnaire survey of sixhundredworkinghistorians in twenty-nine selected colleges and universities, plusspecial'preparatory memos'from fortynine othereminentscholars. The panelconsidered three questions: What is history? What do historians do?What is the futureof history? The opening essay provides an excellent brief discussion of the natureof historyby comparingasideal antitypes the humanistic and social-scientific approaches. The thrustis pointedyet the toneis ironic,althoughsomeradicalhistorians may dislikebeingscoredfor their anti-quantitativebent. Essentially, Landesand Tilly view social-scientific historyas an expansion rather than a replacement for the traditional humanistic modes of historical research. This theme is continued in the nextsection, whichdescribes the manyvarietiesof behaviouraland quantitativehistoryand suggests that socialscientists in sisterdisciplines needthe contribution of historians to provideperspective on present problems. The final half of the book,whichsuggests the shapeof the future, is the mostoriginaland controversial section. In it, Landesand Tilly offer a variety of curricular, financial, and organizationalrecommendations. Most notable arethefollowing:(x) topicalcourses based onanalytical themes (war, urbanization, mobility) whichmesha teacher's research interests with an importantsubject that canbetaughtin a comparative andinterdisciplinary contextto meettheneeds of 'outsiders' andspecialists alike; (•) methodical training for all graduate students in research design, socialstatistics, and computer programming, quantitativedata sources, and socialscience theoryform relateddisciplines (all thisin additionto foreignlanguages conventionally required ); (3) interdisciplinary seminar-workshops continuing up to the doctorate ; (4) post-doctoral trainingin relatedsocialsciences; (5) increased research financing by suchagencies asthe National Science Foundation(which has heretofore hesitated tofundhistory projects); and(6) government-supported regional librarycenters anddataarchives. Theseandmanyotherrecommendationsarecogently presented anddemandtheattentionof all teaching historians, especially those in graduateschools. Shorter's spritely book,according to theintroduction, isfor...