INTERNATIONAL ENCYCLOPEDIA OF SOCIAL & BEHAVIORAL SCIENCES
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Editors-in-Chief
Neil J. Smelser Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences, Stanford, USA
Paul B. Baltes Max Planck Institute for Human Development, Berlin, Germany
Letter from the Editors
A Milestone Publication - the First Social Sciences' Major Reference Work for 30 Years
The emergence and development of academic disciplines and fields are typically celebrated through the creation of works of reference. The first multi-volume Encyclopedia of the Social Sciences (15 volumes) appeared between 1930 and 1935 under the editorship of Edwin R A Seligman and Alvin Johnson, both economists. Its successor was the International Encyclopedia of the Social Sciences (17 volumes) published in 1968 under the editorship of David Sills, a sociologist. The logic of time alone - one such encyclopedia every one-third century - suggests the appropriateness of a new reference work in the social and behavioral sciences for the turn of the century.
The scientific and intellectual dynamics of the social and behavioral sciences yield a similar and even more compelling logic.
Since the 1960s there has been:
A staggering growth and specialization of knowledge in the various disciplines. Dozens of new subfields have appeared in all of them, and none has avoided some sense of "identity crisis" bred by specialization and fragmentation.
A corresponding scientific and intellectual ferment. All of the social and behavioral sciences have been affected profoundly by the computer and information revolutions and their ramification into theory construction, data analysis, and publication and dissemination of data and knowledge.
An increase in interdisciplinary connections and activities. An expanded interest in the policy and applications of social and behavioral science knowledge pushes research in interdisciplinary directions.
An internationalization of the social and behavioral sciences in response to the dynamics of globalism and internationality.
A necessary but still incomplete rapprochement between the social and behavioral sciences on the one side and the biological life sciences on the other. Whereas in the past the social sciences neglected if not shied away from biological/genetic perspectives, recent decades - with the advent of the new and environment-sensitive genetics - have witnessed a growing commitment to a proactive collaboration between the life sciences and the social sciences.
The aim of the International Encyclopedia of the Social & Behavioral Sciences is nothing less than to provide state-of-the-art coverage of the knowledge developed to date, including the dynamics and complications just noted. It will be produced in such a way that it will be of value to all interested and potentially interested parties - scholars inside and outside the disciplines represented, students, those concerned with policy and applications, and lay people generally.
