Engineering Society The Role of the Human and Social Sciences in Modern Societies, 1880-1980

by Ziemann, Benjamin; Brückweh, Kerstin; Wetzell, Richard F.; Schumann, Dirk

• ISBN13: 9780230279070
• ISBN10: 0230279074
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2012-11-13
• Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan

Summary

Explaining crime by reference to abnormalities of the brain is just one example of how the human and social sciences have influenced the approach to social problems in Western societies since 1880. Focusing on applications such as penal policy, therapy, and marketing, this volume examines how these sciences have become embedded in society.

Author Biography

BENJAMIN ZIEMANN is Professor of Modern German History at the University of Sheffield and author of Contested Commemorations. War Remembrances and Republican Politics in Weimar Germany (Cambridge: CUP 2013).


KERSTIN BRÜCKWEH is a Research Fellow at the German Historical Institute London, UK, and editor of The Voice of the Citizen Consumer. A History of Market Research, Consumer Movements, and the Political Public Sphere (Oxford: OUP 2011).


RICHARD F. WETZELL is a Research Fellow at the German Historical Institute in Washington DC and the author of Inventing the Criminal: A History of German Criminology, 1880-1945 (Chapel Hill, 2000).


DIRK SCHUMANN is Professor of Modern and Contemporary History at Georg-August-Universität Göttingen, Germany. His most recent book is (ed.) Raising Citizens in the 'Century of the Child'. Child Rearing in America and German Central Europe in the Twentieth Century (New York: Berghahn Books, 2010).

Table of Contents

List of Illustrations
List of Tables
Acknowledgements
Notes on Contributors
Introduction. The Scientization of the Social in Comparative Perspective; B.Ziemann, R.F.Wetzell, D.Schumann & K.Brückweh
Embedding the Human Sciences in Western Societies, 1880-1980. Reflections on Trends and Methods of Current Research; L.Raphael
PART I: SOCIAL AND PENAL POLICY
Contesting Risk. Specialist Knowledge and Workplace Accidents in Britain, Germany and Italy, 1870-1920; J.Moses
Politics through the Back Door. Expert Knowledge in International Welfare Organizations; M.Lengwiler
Rationalizing the Individual – Engineering Society. The Case of Sweden; T.Etzemüller
The Neurosciences and Criminology: How Experts have moved into Public Policy and Debate; P.Becker
PART II: DIAGNOSIS AND THERAPY
The Psychological Sciences and the 'Scientization' and 'Engineering' of Society in Twentieth-century Britain; M.Thomson
Mental Health as Civic Virtue: Psychological Definitions of Citizenship in the Netherlands, 1900-1985; H.Oosterhuis
Human Sciences, Child Reform and Politics in Spain, 1890-1936; T.Kössler
Narcissism: Social Critique in Me-Decade America; E.Lunbeck
PART III: POLLING, MARKETING, AND ORGANIZATIONS
Hearing the Masses: The Modern Science of Opinion in the United States; S.Igo
Observing the Sovereign. Opinion Polls and the Restructuring of the Body Politic in West Germany, 1945-1990; A.Kruke & B.Ziemann
Consumers, Markets and Research: The Role of Political Rhetoric and the Social Sciences in the Engineering of British and American Consumer Society, 1920-1960; S.Schwarzkopf
Business Organizations, Foundations, and the State as Promoters of Applied Social Sciences in the United States and Switzerland, 1890-1960; E.Walter-Busch
Catholic Church Reform and Organizations Research in the Netherlands and Germany, 1945-1980; B.Ziemann & C.Dols
Index