form of social criticism behind them. Scintillating wit and bold, surprising insights, they agreed, were no substitute for painstaking research. More and more, social scientists emphasized the importance of teamwork. They pursued their studies in close collaboration with each other, not in cantankerous isolation. They felt an overwhelming need to collect masses of "data" beyond the powers of a single individual, to submit their "findings" to co-workers at conferences and symposia, to revise them in the light of "constructive criticism," and to formulate their conclusions as "policy recommendations" accompanied by appropriate suggestions for "implementation." Organized on an elaborate scale, research in the social sciences now required financial support from government and philanthropic foundations, institutions that also constituted the primary audience for reports based on this research. Even the most explosive and controversial issues, accordingly, had to be discussed in a forbidding, inaccessible style designed to repel outsiders as well as to establish the investigators' status as impartial experts unmoved by "oratory."

Gunnar Myrdal's massive study of the race problem—an explosive issue if there ever was one—became a classic example of the new genre. Published in 1944, An American Dilemma proclaimed its authoritative status in every detail, most loudly in its sheer bulk—fifteen hundred closely packed and largely unreadable pages, a third of which consisted of appendixes, reference notes, and other impedimenta. Fifty-six tables and graphs contributed to the unmistakable impression of weightiness, as did an introductory list of Myrdal's collaborators, research assistants, and consultants: six members of the working staff; thirty-one scholars who contributed memoranda based on fresh research; thirty-six research assistants ; and fifty-two scholars who read parts of the manuscript and made "criticisms and suggestions." Commissioned and funded by the Carnegie Corporation, An American Dilemma exuded the atmosphere of the boardroom, the conference table, and the academic seminar. It was judicious, exhaustive, dispassionate, and unremittingly dull. The choice of a Swedish scholar to supervise the study and write up the findings provided the final proof of objectivity. Speaking for the Carnegie Corporation, Frederick Keppel explained that the trustees had chosen a foreigner because "the whole question had been for nearly a hundred years so charged with emotion that it appeared wise to seek ... someone who could approach his task with a fresh mind, uninfluenced by traditional attitudes or by earlier conclusions."

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