Victor Karady, Adela Hincu,
Social Sciences in the “Other Europe” since 1945 (Budapest: Pasts Inc., Center for Historical studies, CEU, 2018)
In recent years, a remarkable flourishing of works on the postwar history of social science and humanities disciplines led to the growing configuration of a field of “Cold War social science” research. Yet in spite of its thematic diversity, and with few exceptions, the geography of the field remains overwhelmingly North American and Western European. This volume brings in the perspective of the “other Europe.” It contributes a series of observations, on and from the margins of the field, which reflect on the condition of knowledge and research on what is perceived and thematized as the (semi-)periphery by the observers themselves. Rather than simply attempting to shift focus, the chapters explore scientific visions of the social off-center. They span the years from the immediate postwar period to the present, and the European semi-peripheries from Tartu to Portugal, with the majority of studies covering East Central Europe. In its chronology, the volume follows, but often challenges, existing accounts of postwar social science: part one engages with Sovietization and the profound transformation of most social science and humanities disciplines in the postwar period up to the 1950s; the second part covers the spectacular rise and domination of sociology among 1960s social sciences; the intensification of transnational exchanges up to the 1980s is the topic of the third part; and the crisis and reorganization of the social sciences in the late-socialist period and the post-socialist years of transition are analyzed in the fourth and final section of the volume.
