Harvard's Quixotic Pursuit of a New Science

Famed sociologist Talcott Parsons led some of the most renowned social scientists of the twentieth century to establish a new department for an interdisciplinary science at Harvard. This is a fascinating instructive tale of hubris, ego, and academic politics overlaid on Parsons’s obsessive quest for an all-encompassing theory of social behavior.

Patrick L. Schmidt is an attorney in Washington, D.C. He received a BA, magna cum laude, from Harvard College, a JD from Georgetown University, and an MIPP from the Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies. He first examined the history of the Department of Social Relations in his undergraduate honors thesis at Harvard.

Preface Acknowledgments 1 Psychoanalytic Thought Arrives at Harvard: Roiling the Disciplines 2 World War II Changes Everything: InterdisciplinaryResearch Emerges 3 The Founding of the Department: A Determined Dean Acts 4 The First Five Years: A Golden Age but Integration Proves Elusive 5 The 1950s: A Decade of Disunity 6 The 1960s: Drugs and Departmental Drift 7 The Final Unraveling: Soc Rel 149 Disrupts and Sociology Departs 8 Conclusion and Summary Notes Bibliography Index About the Author