ABSTRACT
Of aH the disciplines that are concerned with human affairs, social psychology is probably the most ahistorical. Other disciplines such as sociology, cultural anthropology and linguistics have enjoyed a long flirtation with history , as weH as the occasional union. But social psychology has chosen to play the part of the waHflower. So far we have been largely unaware of the interdisciplinary dance going on around us, or if we have known about it we have decided not to join in. Sociology, on the other hand, has had a long and profitable association with history. Comte and Marx were equaHy at horne in either discipline, and Durkheim and Weber had a profound impact on the course of historical studies-in particular on historians such as Febvre, Bloch and the Annales school in France. Durkheim was of course both a sociologist and an anthropologist, and in his latter capacity he was able from the beginning to claim a special place for history in the study of other societies. The role of history has since been reinforced by such diverse anthropologists as Evans-Pritchard (1961), Harris (1968), and Lewis (1968). Ofthe recent anthropologists, Evans-Pritchard has probably been the most adamant in insisting on the importance of history. He makes the point that just as culture offers a way of testing theories and models in different societies, so too history affords a laboratory for testing their validity in different ages. That is, it offers the kind of diversity that the anthropologist finds in different cultures.
