The Making of Modern Social Psychology

The hidden story of how an international social science was created

By: Serge Moscovici (École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales) and Ivana Markova (University of Stirling.)

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Description

 

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* Exam copies only available to lecturers for whom the book may be suitable as a course text.
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Reviews

"It has been a great pleasure to read this book -- its thorough scholarship and entertaining writing style make it into a masterpiece. As a concise history of recent social psychology worldwide (1960s-1970s), it is a unique treatise on the institutional moves and personal relationships of leading social psychologists on both sides of the Atlantic. This sophisticated case study adds a crucial voice to historical and sociological scholarship. It will be particularly useful at graduate and postgraduate levels -- in courses on history of psychology in general, and in special seminars on history of social psychology. This book covers the material precisely as I would like, and will be ideal for use in my seminars as core reading."

Joan Valsiner, Professor of Psychology, Clark University, USA, and Editor, Culture & Psychology

"This is a richly documented and vivid account of key events in the formation of an academic discipline. It shows how individuals make history, albeit not in conditions of their own making, by seeking an alternative path for the globalization of knowledge. The book traces the apparent failure of the project of rescuing a social psychology of human beings from the global diffusion of a local USA model (individualists, prescriptive, ethnocentric). Ironically, this "invisible college" was initiated by a visionary group of US scholars mobilizing allies in Europe, Latin America, and Asia under adverse Cold-War conditions. This is an encouraging book. The project of a universally relevant social psychology will continue to inspire the quest for genuine human understanding."

Martin W. Bauer, Director MSc Social and Public Communication, Institute of Social Psychology & Methodology Institute, London School of Economics

"This fascinating and important book makes out a carefully documented and persuasive case that one virtually forgotten committee, more than any other body, was responsible for shaping the international social psychology we know today. The book will be an essential source for future research on and understanding of the history of social psychology and anyone with an interest in that history really should read it."

Colin Fraser, Department of Social Developmental Psychology, University of Cambridge

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Table of Contents

List of Illustrations

Preface: the Age of Science

Acknowledgements

Introduction: Approaching the Past

Chapter 1: Science in and after 1789

Chapter 2: Science and its Languages

Chapter 3: Applied Science

Chapter 4: Intellectual Excitement

Chapter 5: Healthy Lives

Chapter 6: Laboratories

Chapter 7: Bodies, Minds and Spirits

Chapter 8: The Time of Triumph

Chapter 9: Science and National Identities

Chapter 10: Method and Heresy

Chapter 11: Cultural Leadership

Chapter 12: Into the New Century

Timeline:

Index

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Author Information

Serge Moscovici is Professor of Social Psychology, l'Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales, Paris.

Ivana Markova is Professor of Social Psychology, University of Stirling.

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