Social Science and Historical Perspectives: Science, Society, and Ways of Knowing

by Jack David Eller

Society has always existed, but social science is remarkably new. How and why did the social sciences originate? How are they related to older philosophical, theological, and moral questions? What is the unique perspective or "way of knowing" of each social science? And what are the challenges to--and alternatives to--the social sciences as we know them today? Take a journey through the history, theories, and schools of economics, political science, psychology, sociology, anthropology, geography, and history and learn how non-Western, feminist, and indigenous ways of knowing are compelling us to rethink and unthink the conventional social sciences.

224 pages, Paperback

First published July 4, 2014

About the author

Prof. David Eller is a cultural anthropologist who has conducted field research among Aboriginal societies in Australia and now teaches anthropology in Denver, Colorado. His recent college textbook Introducing Anthropology of Religion is being hailed as the most significant introduction to the scientific study of religion in a decade. His previous AAP book Natural Atheism showed him to be as good a philosopher as scientist. Now we see he is equally skilled as a linguist and semanticist and can show that for knowledgeable atheists "atheism" means more than the absence of god-beliefs: it is the absence (indeed the rejection) of belief altogether.

Reviews

[Lisa Nguyen · Rating 4 out of 5]

can’t believe i reviewed a social science textbook and the problem is that i really liked it. like this made me reconsider how interesting social science is LMFAO. and i loved the textbook’s critique of western knowledge (like they brought my man edward said in come on)