| Book Review | The Journal of American History, 91.4

You have not been recognized as a subscriber to JAH online. About 238 words from this article are provided below; about 372 words remain.

If you are a individual member of the Organization of American Historians, you may:: • login here if you have already registered for online access.; • Or if you're already logged in register your subscription.
• Set up your online account for the first time.
If you are not a member of the Organization of American Historians, you can:: • Join the OAH and receive many member benefits including print and electronic issues of the Journal of American History.
• Purchase a research pass to gain two-hour access to the entire History Cooperative web site. You will have full access to current issues of the Journal of American History (86.1-present). Note: the Research Pass does not provide access to JSTOR's holdings of the Journal of American History.
Instititutions can:: • Subscribe to this journal and receive print and electronic issues.
• Activate your existing subscription so that we recognize your IP number ranges.

| Book Review | The Journal of American History, 91.4 | The History Cooperative

Book Review

Imagining the American Polity: Political Science and the Discourse of Democracy. By John G. Gunnell. (University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 2004. x, 289 pp. $40.00, ISBN 0-271-02352-X.)

According to Thomas Kuhn, scientists ignore the history of their discipline and, except in rare moments of crisis, focus exclusively upon puzzle solving. Both epistemological discussions and historical assessment disappear once an area of study has crossed the divide between pre-science and science. Perhaps Kuhn is incorrect, or American political science is misnamed, or social science is exempt from these restrictions. In any case, American political scientists, despite their attraction to Kuhn's model, have been exceptionally self-conscious about their history as a discipline. Some of the classic works of American political science, such as Charles Merriam's New Aspects of Politics (1925) and Bernard Crick's The American Science of Politics (1959), are in fact histories of the discipline. The American Political Science Association provides historical resources for its members in its oral history project and its serial state-of-the-discipline publications. Historical disciplinary narrative is also widely employed not only to attempt to redirect research but to defend political judgments. David Ricci's The Tragedy of Political Science: Politics, Scholarship and Democracy (1984) and Raymond Seidelman's Disenchanted Realists: Political Science and the American Crisis, 1884–1984 (1985) are two influential examples. John G. Gunnell's Imagining the American Polity is a new and valuable addition to this tradition of disciplinary historical reevaluation.

. . .

There are about 372 more words in this article. Please log in (or, if you are not yet an authorized user, please go to the User Setup page) to gain full access rights. Or if you're already logged in register your subscription.