College and Research Libraries ogy than with librarianship. I would have preferred that Hardesty had abbre- viated the statistical and methodological sections and concentrated on the lessons to be learned from his research. The lesson that he seems to draw is that other college libraries should emu- late Earlham College. It is clear that of the college faculties he studied, Earlham's is the most successfully integrated with its library's program, a fact explained, of course, by the fundamental role of library instruction in that college's mission. It is certainly not the model for every college, as each has its own particular mission. Hardesty argues further that librari- ans should work closely with faculty to encourage use of the library, an argu- ment that assumes the library is always vital in the educational process. There are many courses in which library use should, in fact, be discouraged by faculty members. The assumption that the li- brary should be used more extensively than it is leads Hardesty to devote his chapter on working with the faculty to ideas about how librarians can change faculty instruction. Instead of being a useful guide to working with faculty, this chapter is about the need to reform the faculty's teaching. I am not con- vinced that it is a librarian's function to change faculty behavior. Although the research in this book is well presented, what, one has to ask, are its implications? It may be that instead of working to change how faculty teach, we librarians should work to change how we run libraries. Perhaps we do not need so many reference librarians. Perhaps we should cut the periodicals that are never used. Perhaps we should concen- trate on having usable college libraries rather than miniature research libraries. We could certainly save colleges a lot of money. This book raises a number of questions that need discussion. I hope that Hardesty's next book will be less about sociology and research and more about how libraries should respond to the im- plications of that research. This book is valuable as a handy distillation of much research, but it is not the guide to work- Book Reviews 595 ing with faculty that college librarians need.-John Ryland, Oglethorpe Univer- sity, Atlanta, Georgia. Ross, Dorothy. The Origins of American Social Science. Cambridge, Mass.: Cam- bridge Univ. Pr., 1991. 508p. $29.95 (ISBN 0-521-35092-1). This is an important book. It presents the thesis that American social science developed under the influence of a na- tional ideology of uniqueness, or "ex- ceptionalism," exaggerated to the point of claiming that this country was exempt from the vicissitudes of European his- tory. The result was an American social science that became excessively abstract and ahistorical. Ross's book is organized chronologi- cally in four parts. In part one, she places the beginning of social science in the eighteenth century as part of a historical development she calls the "discovery of modernity," and she traces the develop- ment of American ideas and their diver- gence from what was seen to be the European experience. American ex- ceptionalism was formed by the experi- ence of gaining national independence, and it was reinforced by celebration of our republican political institutions and abundant natural resources. When liber- alism emerged early in the nineteenth century, with an inherent conflict between humanism and commercialism, human- ism and freedom from oppression were considered secure for exceptionalist Amer- ica; so national energy could focus on commercialism associated with free en- terprise. Early social science writers of this time emphasized civil liberty, self- government, private ownership, and free trade. Up until the Civil War, they believed in natural law discovered through liberal enlightenment, and they regarded the study of history as an intru- sion of superstition and corruption. In part two, covering the thirty years after the Civil War, Ross focuses on the crisis in exceptionalist ideology and the formation of social science disciplines, particularly economics, political science, and sociology, which she regards as the "core disciplines." From the founding of 596 College & Research Libraries the American Social Science Association in 1865, social scientists worked to estab- lish criteria to replace religion as a guide for society. They also had to struggle with dominance by the gentry in the leading universities. Political econo- mists began developing empirical meth- ods, and they put forward the concept of free trade in order to mobilize free market ideas against labor organizers. Sociolo- gists formulated the concept that historical events were subject to scientific control, and they advanced scientific criteria to combat religious control. Socialism posed a deep threat to American exceptionalism, but it was countered ultimately by the he- gemony of Protestantism, which mini- mized immigrant and non-Protestant influences in social science (Thorstein Veblen and Edwin Seligman aside); by the prevalence of marginalist over histori- cal economics; and by the eventual ascen- dance of scientific over ethical (and religious) sociology. In part three, spanning the next twenty years to the First World War, Ross examines the writings of prominent so- cial scientists to show them pushing ahead with "still porous" disciplines to revise and reestablish the exceptionalist outlook. John Dewey's pragmatism pro- vided the intellectual core. In economics, the growth of marginalist neoclassicism promoted an emphasis on scientific methodology. In sociology, a basically conservative orientation prevailed, fa- voring social control that emphasized integrating marginal groups into main- stream industrial development, as op- posed to a more radical alternative of proletarian mobilization. Among the core disciplines, economics and sociol- ogy won the battle against socialism, and political science was separated from its roots in the study of history by taking the present away from historians and treating it more "scientifically." In part four, Ross describes the period from 1908 to 1929, in which new models were formulated by a generation that November1991 established the essential character of the disciplines as we now know them. This new cohort created fluid concepts, em- phasizing process more than progress and seeking to channel historical change even while responding to it. This period also saw the advent of "scientism," the application of natural science methods to the social sciences, which becomes in the process an end in itself. Scientism developed as one of the trappings of professionalism, favoring a turn away from institutionalism-expla- nation in terms of institutions-toward instrumentalism-explanation in terms of processes-and providing a more compelling basis of appeal for financial support (including formation of the Na- tional Bureau of Economic Research and the Social Science Research Council). Throughout the book, Ross's intent is to analyze critically the influence ex- ceptionalism has had on American social science. Her method of adhering to the working language of the leading social scientists who reflect exceptionalist val- ues (the authors of what she calls the canon of social science writings) is im- pressive considering the vast scope of her undertaking. Its long chronological sweep using a consistent conceptual framework makes it a powerful study, and the bibliographical notes indicate that archival collections of personal pa- pers as well as major published works were consulted. Inevitably, in such a broadly conceived work, the writings of some social scientists receive relatively cursory attention (Ross acknowledges she has had to be selective). There also is just a six-page epilogue where a con- cluding chapter could be wished for. Nevertheless, Ross has offered a basis for reexamining assumptions and methods she feels have proved unfortunate for both historians and social scientists. Oth- ers also have called for this interdiscipli- nary discussion, and this book will strengthen that calL-Richard Fitchen, Stanford University, Stanford, California.