History: a social science neglected by other social sciences (and why it should not be)

Abstract

This paper argues that the promotion of social science influence in policy-making has strangely neglected the discipline of history. Yet history has been expanding its role as a ‘policy science’ in recent years. While historians may not be able to employ some of the methodological tools of other social scientists, they nonetheless utilise analytical tools of their own which enable them to interpret the ‘past’ in a rigorous and meaningful way. It is thus possible to ‘learn from history’ without being reductionist or prescriptive. Specific examples are here drawn from the authors' fields of expertise—the history of health policy and public health, history of alcohol policy, the history of childhood—to illustrate the underlying argument.

Notes

For example, see The Guardian (2011, front page) highlighting new ‘public intellectuals’ who had won an Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC) competition to promote media discussion of research. Many of the winners were historians.

Shula Marks's comments were made in a paper (‘The responsibilities of the historian’) given at a conference organised by the Royal Historical Society in 2002.

Conversation between Virginia Berridge and vaccination researchers, June 2011, LSHTM.