Scott Gordon provides a review of the historical development of the social sciences from their beginnings in Renaissance Italy to the present day. He examines the problems that the great thinkers have confronted in their attempts to construct systematic theories of social phenomena. At the same time, he presents an authoritative survey of the major writers in the fields of economics, sociology and political science. Separate chapters are devoted to the nature of sociality, the idea of harmonious order, the conflict between progress and perfection, the methodology of history, and the relation...