Who said history is mother of all sciences

Historians of Asia, Africa, and Eastern Europe fairly frequently had affiliations with research centers in their institutions, while historians of the United States or Western Europe rarely had such affiliations.

Yet the latter groups show the highest proportions of full professors, while the newer fields of East European, Asian, African, and Latin American history include many of lesser rank. Likewise, diplomatic historians, economic historians, and the much younger group of historians of science are concentrated in the senior ranks, while political, social, and intellectual historians generally occupy the junior positions.

Thus an economic historian of Asia to take an extreme case is likely to hold senior appointments in both a department of history and a research center in a high-prestige institution, and a historian of European science is likely to hold a similar position without the research affiliation, while the odds are better that an American political historian will hold high rank, without research appointment, in a less distinguished institution, and that a Latin American social historian will hold a similar appointment at a lower rank.

There are, for example, marked variations in research funds available to historians in different fields, as shown by the data on funds received from outside the university between and , reported by historians in the twenty-nine departments surveyed.

Except for the history of science which is the best-supported field in almost every respect , the specialties receiving heavier outside support are generally those connected with interdisciplinary research centers. Among geographical specialists, historians of Latin America, Africa, and Asia do best. Over and above these differences by field, our data show the decided advantage not only in outside grants, but also in university support, teaching load, and time released for research of the historian in a high prestige institution or with a research appointment.

On the whole, with the important exception of historians of science, the kinds of historians who are best supported also show the closest ties to the behavioral and social sciences. Distinguishing between fields, we find that we can divide our historians into three categories: uninterested, involved, and frustrated. Historians of science and intellectual historians, especially those dealing with Europe and North America, typify those with little social science training, little current contact with social science fields, and little desire to change in this regard.

Economic historians of the United States, Latin America, or Asia provide a good example of the involved: likely to have substantial formal training in economics, staying in contact with economics and economists, and interested in extending their knowledge of social science.

The frustrated are those with little previous social science training who have come to think that it is vital to their own work: social historians of the Americas tend to fall into this category. While in this case everything depends on the definitions, it would not be outrageous to label a fifth of the historians answering our questionnaire uninterested, another third involved, and nearly half of them frustrated.

A fairly standard life cycle of research also appears in the findings. Within the sample the men just getting started tend to have heavy teaching loads, course assignments alien to their research interests, and poor support for their research. Those who are farther along begin to acquire funds, time off, and greater control over their teaching assignments, but also begin to feel the pinch of administrative responsibilities and outside commitments to writing and public service.

The most senior historians are less likely to be involved in large and expensive research, although they continue to bear the burden of administrative and outside commitments. The more distinguished the institution and the closer the affiliation with a research institute, the earlier the historian achieves the perquisites of seniority.

Finally, some features of the historical landscape are changing with time. Judging by age, year of acquiring the PhD, or academic rank, we find senior historians concentrated in the traditional fields of North American and West European history especially diplomatic, intellectual, and political history , and junior men in the newer specialties of East European, African, Asian, and Latin American history.

These latter fields include very few scholars who earned PhDs before In recent years Eastern Europe appears to have lost favor, but all the others have more than their share of PhDs earned since So the very fields that involve their practitioners most heavily in the behavioral and social sciences are the ones that are growing and are currently staffed with junior men. The younger men have a different outlook on their profession. I was trained as one and view my work as a historian as developing and testing social science theory and method with historical data.

I think that the historian is generally more penetrating in his search for evidence, and is more rigorous in his application of the method. As new fields of inquiry flourish within history, the division of opinion is changing, and the genteel poverty of historical researchers may change as well.

An increasing number of historians are working in fields that bring them into interdisciplinary research centers and other forms of contact with more favored disciplines. Since they are better financed and equipped than their fellows, they inevitably produce a kind of demonstration effect among them. Historians—at least many historians—have not yet learned to live with these uncomfortable intruders on a world of art, intuition, and verbal skill. Hence our concern to stress the fact that we speak here for just one branch of the historical profession and that the changes we recommend are complementary to, rather than competitive with, other branches of historical scholarship.

Social scientific research will make history richer, more exciting, more valuable, more relevant that much overused word!

But it is not alone in possessing these merits, and much of what it has to contribute is dependent on its incorporation within the discipline of history. The flow of knowledge and insight here runs two ways.

History has always been a borrower from other disciplines, and in that sense social scientific history is just another example of a time-honored process; but history has always been a lender, and all the social sciences would be immeasurably poorer without knowledge of the historical record.

The social sciences are not a self-contained system, one of whose boundaries lies in some fringe area of the historical sciences. Rather the study of man is a continuum, and social scientific history is a bridge between the social sciences and the humanities. What we are proposing, to both audiences, is a bigger and better bridge.

This program of reform would obviously open paths to social scientific work in history which simply do not exist within the traditional confines of historical teaching and research. History is also closely related to Economics.

As the activities of a man in society are very closely related with the economic matters, the historian of any period must possess at least a rudimentary knowledge of the economics. In fact, the economic history of any period is an important branch of history and its understanding is absolutely essential for the proper understanding of history of any period.

No doubt, it is true that during the last few years economics has become very complex and difficult subject, mostly dependent on mathematics, and a modern historian cannot acquire basic working knowledge of economic theory without devoting a lot of time and leaving little time for the study and writing of history.

Therefore, a new set of economic history by the use of economic historians have emerged who try to study the economic history by the use of the economic tools. At present, history is so closely interlinked with the study of economic problems that it would not be possible to reconstruct history without knowledge of the relevant economic problems. In the present century the writing of history has been greatly influenced by the statistical data. With the invention of computers, the collection of statistical data has become possible.

Though the conclusion drawn on the basis of the data may be known to the historians on the basis of the impressionistic evidence, which does reduce the value because it provides a concrete evidence for a previously held thesis. This type of detailed investigation enables the historians to understand the different facts of the past life.

History and sociology are intimately related and a number of sociologists like Auguste Comte are also important figure in the development of historical studies. Karl Marx was also a great historian and sociologist. Both History and Sociology are concerned with the study of man in society and differed only with regard to their approach. In the recent years it was realized that a fruitful interaction between the two disciplines was possible and Emile Durkheim, Max Weber acknowledge the initial dependence of sociology upon history.

The opportunities for those who study History do not end at the civil services. Those who develop deeper interest in the subject can take to academics, both at school and college levels. There is also the opportunity to specialise in Archaeology and Heritage Management.

Share Via. Get our Daily News Capsule Subscribe. BS in sociology programs focus more on research theories and methodologies than BA programs, concentrating on data collection and analysis. They also typically include more courses focused on the major. One of the key debates in the study of sociological theory is whether sociology should be considered to be a science or not. These positivists believed that sociology could use scientific method to establish social facts and prove universal laws, exactly like the natural sciences.

Sociology studies all kinds of society, organized or un-organised. But Political Science is a science of State and Government. Sociology studies all the social institutions whereas Political Science studies only State and Government. Originally Answered: Why is sociology considered a useless major?