The hiss of history and the sigh of psychology
Abstract
The hiss of history and the sigh of psychology SAGE Publications, Inc.1997DOI: 10.1177/095269519701000208 Mike Michael Lancaster University, Lancaster, UK Robert M. Farr, The Roots of Modern Social Psychology. Oxford: Blackwell, 1996. £40.00 (hbk), £12.99 (pbk), xvii + 204 pp. Graham Richards, Putting Psychology in its Place: An introduction from a critical historical perspective. London: Routledge, 1996. £40.00 (hbk), £12.99 (pbk), x + 197 pp. Daniel N. Robinson, An Intellectual History of Psychology, 3rd edn. London: Arnold, 1995. £14.99 (pbk), viii + 381 pp. HISTORY OF THE HUMAN SCIENCES Vol. 10 No. 2 @ 1997 SAGE Publications (London, Thousand Oaks and New Delhi) pp. 133-139 [0952-6951(199705)10:2] Why on earth should historians, however humble their disciplinary origins, be interested in writing a history of psychology (or one of its component ventures) ? Practising psychologists, as with all 'scientists', write their own histories. The value of the little histories that introduce the 'scientific paper' and the bigger histories that preface textbooks is manifold. These narratives signal difference and evoke community; they mediate politeness-work whilst proclaiming (or disputing) priority; they gather up the past to define the present and forge the future. Such histories are moves in a game, tactics in a