Foreward
On rare occasions in literary history a new publication appears, not
as a result of long, conscious planning, not a product of
particularistic
ambitions, but as a spontaneous generation within a dominant circle of
circumstances. Social Research is such a spontaneous
growth.
Political revolution on the European continent had expelled from their
usual orbits of activity scores and hundreds of the ablest scholars, to
whom the scientific world had turned for light upon the problems that
harass
the whole of mankind. These scholars, representing collectively
an
important fraction of the world's thinking power, had been divorced
from
their customary avenues of expression. Magazines published in
their
countries of origin, if not formally closed to them, were practically
closed.
Nothing could be more natural than the emergence of a new organ of
publication
at the New School, where the largest organic grouping of scholars
abroad
has been established as a Graduate Faculty of Political and Social
Science.
It would be impossible, even if it were practicable, for an organized
body of Continental scholars to function abroad exactly as they had
functioned
at home. When the Greek scholars were expelled from
Constantinople
in the fifteenth century they were not able to set up in the Western
world
exactly the same scheme of literary education, of training in art, of
criticism
and philosophy as had been established in the old Byzantine
Empire.
They were forced to widen their views, to apply Greek methods to
Italian
and Austrian and French materials. The consequence was a
cross-fertilization
of cultures, a renaissance that definitely closed the Dark Ages.
The German and Italian and Russian scholars residing abroad will
inevitably
be subject to a similar process of adjustment to a new
environment.
Form and material share equally in creation, and though the form of the
scholar's mind may be German or Russian or Italian, the material on
which
he must work is world material. What is striving for expression
in
the collective mind of the Continental scholars abroad is not the kind
of thinking to which they were formerly devoted but a new kind of
thinking.
And there can be little doubt that when the integration of form and
material
has been completely effected new and potent forces will have been set
in
operation in the intellectual world.
Social Research is an early sign of this coming
intellectual
movement. The methods employed are obviously Continental, the
material
is of the world at large. And this defines the general character
of the magazine. Its contributors will be drawn for the most
part,
but not exclusively, from among the Continental scholars abroad, both
at
the New School and in other institutions of America and Europe.
The
subject matter will be drawn from interests that transcend the
boundaries
of a single country. It will include theory, political, social
and
economic; problems of social and political organization that are
worldwide
in their general character though national in specific characteristics,
such as class differentiation, militarism, the labor movement; problems
involving the interdependence of nations, like the phenomena of
prosperity
and depression, prices and currency, movements of international trade
and
investment.
The first issue if wholly the product of the Graduate Faculty in the
New School. Later issues will draw upon a wider range of
scholarship.
The first issue is devoted entirely to leading articles. Later
issues
will also make room for notes, critical reviews of books of importance
within the field of the journal, and briefer notices of books of more
special
interest.
Social Research has no apologies to offer for
appearing in a
in a world in which publications are already embarrassingly
numerous.
It has a field of its own, won by circumstances and the wholesome
disposition
of scholarship to react positively to circumstances. The editors
are aware that many shortcomings will crave the indulgence of the
reader.
They are confident that the reader will extend not only his indulgence
but his friendship.
Alvin Johnson
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