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Social Anthropology and Social Science History

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  04 January 2016

David I. Kertzer
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Abstract

In the 1970s, when the social science history movement emerged in the UnitedStates, leading to the founding of the Social Science History Association, asimultaneous movement arose in which historians looked to cultural anthropologyfor inspiration. Although both movements involved historians turning to socialsciences for theory and method, they reflected very different views of thenature of the historical enterprise. Cultural anthropology, most notably aspreached by Clifford Geertz, became a means by which historians could find atheoretical basis in the social sciences for rejecting a scientific paradigm.This article examines this development while also exploring the complex wayscultural anthropology has embraced—and shunned—history in recentyears.

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Type
Presidential Address
Information
Social Science History , Volume 33 , Issue 1 , Spring 2009 , pp. 1 - 16
Copyright
Copyright © Social Science History Association 2009 

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