Klein and de Vries lament the erosion of the alliance between historians and social scientists that has taken place in recent decades. For Klein, the main reason for this change has been historians’ “turn” from the insights of the social sciences; for de Vries, it is the effects of the attempt by many historians to restore “narrative history.” Whatever the cause, neither scholar is optimistic about closing the gap between historians and social scientists.

The first professional societies in the United States, from the 1880s to the 1910s, understood history to be closely associated with the other social sciences. Even in the mid-twentieth century, history was still grouped with the other social sciences, along with economics, sociology, political science, and anthropology. But in the past few decades, history and anthropology in the United States (though not necessarily in other countries) have moved away from the social sciences to ally themselves with the humanities—paradoxically, just when the other social sciences are becoming more committed to historical research.

Historians’ engagement with the social sciences, which was promising and multi-dimensional into the 1970s, shriveled soon thereafter. The factors that seemed to justify this turning away appear today to be much less compelling. Times have changed, and both historians and social scientists may now be ready to re-engage with an interrupted project to intensify interdisciplinary dialogue, improve the methods of historical explanation, and construct a more historical body of social theory.