The origins of this volume emerged from an interdisciplinary course in which I participated while at the University of Pennsylvania during the 1969–70 academic year. Four instructors representing their different fields of study were present: an anthropologist, a political scientist, a sociologist, and myself, from economics. Our forty students were among the brightest freshmen and sophomores the university had to offer. The first term we split the class into four sections, and each instructor exposed ten students to a quick but sophisticated introductory survey of his area. For the second term the class was reunited and a single problem was chosen to be considered by the group as a whole. It was hoped the students would develop an appreciation for social science in general rather than the feeling that our four subjects were distinct and unrelated spheres of knowledge.

The problem selected for the second term was to gain some insight into what it means for a society to modernize. Our attention focused on four books, one from each field: W. H. Goodenough, Cooperation in Change (anthropology), D. E. Apter, The Politics of Modernization (political science), E. E. Hagen, On the Theory of Social Change (sociology), and A. O. Hirschman, The Strategy of Economic Development (economics). Frequently we met with our first-term sections to discuss these books from the point of view of our own disciplines; at other times we met as a single group to educate each other and to obtain an overall perspective. Each student summarized his thoughts in a term paper at the end.