1
TELLING THE STORY OF POLITICAL SCIENCE
1
I know that there is high contempt on the part of many persons for the
pursuit of learning that does not end in the vindication of their
preconceptions...
Charles A. Beard
The Centennial of the American Political Science Association is a propitious
point at which to reflect on the manner in which the past of the discipline has been
imaged -- or imagined. Gabriel Almond’s Orwellian dictum that "whoever controls the
interpretation of the past in our professional history writing has gone a long way toward
controlling the future"
2
may be a bit over the top, but telling the story of political science
has always been a crucial element both in the discipline’s internal rhetoric of inquiry and
search for identity. In recent years, there has been increased attention to the study of
the history of the social sciences, by both professional historians and disciplinary
practitioners, but there is still a question of whether what, in effect, has been a
dislocated rhetoric can achieve the status of an independent practice of knowledge.
Answering this question requires examining critically the historiography of political
science, that is, both the published research and the methodological principles em-
bodied and asserted in that work, and locating this literature in the context of studies in
1
This essay is an expanded version of the Appendix to John G. Gunnell, Imagining the
American Polity: Political Science and the Discourse of Democracy (Pennsylvania State
University Press, 2004)
2
Gabriel A. Almond, “Separate Tables: Schools and Sects in Political Science,” PS
(1988), p. 835.
Page 1 of 51 
Convention