Narrative in the Historical Sciences: An Interdisciplinary Bibliography

Version of June 1996

Note: A pdf copy of this document, suitable for printing, is available on the Social Science Research Network (SSRN #2542010).

This bibliography was compiled by Robert J. O’Hara for the members of Darwin-L, and academic discussion group on the history and theory of the historical sciences (1993–1997). Additions from Debra Journet, Linnda R. Caporael, and Greg Ransom are gratefully acknowledged. The master copy is maintained in the Files section of the Darwin-L Archives (rjohara.net/darwin). This is a working bibliography: I have not seen all of the items listed, and some citations may be incomplete. My object here was not to be exhaustive, but rather to provide a set of citations that would help advanced students get a sense of what has gone on and is going on across a range of different fields. This bibliography may be freely distributed in print or electronically as long as the references and this introduction remain intact. Additional bibliographies on the history of systematics, on trees of history, and on the works of Stephen Toulmin are also available in the Darwin-L Archives.

Note · June 1998: A few additions and corrections have been made to this bibliography since it was initially compiled in 1996, but no attempt has been made to comprehensively revise it since that time.

• Beer, Gillian. 1983. Darwin’s Plots. London: Ark.
• Brown, Vivienne. 1994. The economy as text. Pp. 368–382 in: New Directions in Economic Methodology (Roger E. Backhouse, ed.). London: Routledge.
• Caporael, Linnda R. 1994. Of myth and science: origin stories and evolutionary scenarios. Social Science Information, 33: 9–23.
• Dyke, Charles. 1990. Strange attraction, curious liaison: Clio meets Chaos. The Philosophical Forum, 21: 369–392.
• Hull, David L. 1975. Central subjects and historical narratives. History and Theory, 14: 253–274. [Discusses the species problem in systematics and evolutionary biology.]
• Hull, David L. 1981. Historical narratives and integrating explanations. Pp. 172–188 in: Pragmatism and Purpose: Essays Presented to Thomas A. Goudge (L.W. Sumner, J.G. Slater, & F. Wilson, eds.). Toronto: University of Toronto Press.
• Journet, Debra. 1991. Ecological theories as cultural narratives: F.E. Clements’s & H.A. Gleason’s ‘stories’ of community succession. Written Communication, 8: 446–472.
• Journet, Debra. 1995. Synthesizing disciplinary narratives: George Gaylord Simpson’s Tempo and Mode in Evolution. Social Epistemology, 9: 113–150.
• Landau, Misia. 1991. Narratives of Human Evolution. New Haven: Yale University Press.
• Latour, Bruno, & S.C. Strum. 1986. Human social origins: Oh please, tell us another story. Journal of Social and Biological Structures, 9: 169–187.
• Levine, G. 1987. Darwin and the Novelists: Patterns of Science in Victorian Fiction. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press.
• MacIntyre, Alasdair. 1977. Epistemological crises, dramatic narrative and the philosophy of science. The Monist, 60: 453–472.
• Maynard Smith, John. 1987. Science and myth. Pp. 222–229 in: The Natural History Reader in Evolution (Niles Eldredge, ed.). New York: Columbia University Press.
• McCloskey, D.N. 1994. Knowledge and Persuasion in Economics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
• McCloskey, D.N. 1995. Once upon a time there was a theory. Scientific American, February 1995, p. 25. [A note on narrative in economics.]
• Miller, Carolyn, & Scott M. Halloran. 1993. Reading Darwin, reading nature; or, on the ethos of historical science. Pp. 106–126 in: Understanding Scientific Prose (Jack Selzer, ed.). Madison: University of Wisconsin Press.
• Miller, Hugh. 1939. History and Science: A Study of the Relation of Historical and Theoretical Knowledge. Berkeley: University of California Press.
• Mitchell, W.J.T., ed. 1981. On Narrative. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. [Essays dealing with narrative in a number of disciplines, including psychoanalysis, history, and anthropology.]
• Myers, G. 1989. Writing Biology: Texts in the Social Construction of Scientific Knowledge. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press.
• O’Hara, Robert J. 1988. Homage to Clio, or, toward an historical philosophy for evolutionary biology. Systematic Zoology, 37: 142–155.
• O’Hara, Robert J. 1992. Telling the tree: narrative representation and the study of evolutionary history. Biology and Philosophy, 7: 135–160.
• Richards, Robert J. 1992. The structure of narrative explanation in history and biology. Pp. 19–53 in: History and Evolution (Matthew H. Nitecki & Doris V. Nitecki, eds.). Albany: SUNY Press.
• Rouse, Joseph. 1990. The narrative reconstruction of science. Inquiry, 33: 179–196.
• Ruse, Michael. 1971. Narrative explanation and the theory of evolution. Canadian Journal of Philosophy, 1: 59–74.
• White, Eric C. 1990. Contemporary cosmology and narrative theory. Pp. 91–112 in: Literature and Science: Theory and Practice (Stuart Peterfreund, ed.). Boston: Northeastern University Press.
• White, Eric C. 1990. The end of metanarratives in evolutionary biology. Modern Language Quarterly, 51: 63–81.
• Wright, Larry. 1995. Argument and deliberation: a plea for understanding. Journal of Philosophy, 92: 565–585.