What is the purpose of social science?
How can social science make itself relevant to the intractable problems facing humanity in the twenty-first century?

The social sciences are under threat from two main sources. One is external, reflected in a global university crisis that imposes the marketization of higher education on the ancient practice of scholarship. The other, internal threat is social science's withdrawal from publicly-engaged teaching and research into the protective bunker of disciplinarity.

In articulating a vision for the public role of...