CHRISTIAN FLECK. A Transatlantic History of the Social Sciences

Behind this somewhat mystifying title lies 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. Some were sustained while working in Europe, but many joined the forced exodus to America and other lands (e.g., from Germany after 1933 and from Austria in 1938). In the process, Fleck argues, the Europeans' focus, methods, and frames of scholarly reference became markedly influenced by American approaches to the social sciences, including adequate external funding, empirical methods, scholarly teamwork, a limited time-frame for projects, and the expansion of the relevant professional disciplines themselves.

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