A Transatlantic History of the Social Sciences Robber Barons, Third Reich Invention of Empirical Social Research

A thoroughly researched study of the ways in which American foundations (notably the Rockefeller Foundation) promoted and supported the development of "empirical" social sciences in twentieth-century Europe. Christian Fleck has not only used contemporary statistical methods but has done exhaustive research in historical archives and records (including the "paradise" of the Rockefeller archive) to lay out what comes close to a collective biography of some 800 German-speaking "sociologists" (a category broad enough to include some persons also known in other social science disciplines) who benefited from financial and professional backing by American philanthropy from the 1920s through the 1950s...This volume offers many useful tables and is very clearly written and translated. Fleck discusses frankly the problems of writing collective biography, but his methodological explanations appear sound and his archival explorations more thorough than many previous efforts along these lines...this dense and thoughtful work offers interesting new approaches and insights into the give and take of transnational intellectual influence and the shaping of new professional disciplines. -- Charles E. McClelland, University Of Texas American Historical Review 20121201