Harvard's quixotic pursuit of a new science: The rise and fall of the Department of Social Relations.

Primary members from psychology were Allport and his brilliant former student Jerome Bruner, along with Murray with his former Clinic lieutenant Robert White who was named Director of the new department's clinical psychology program. This book is based on a remarkable Harvard undergraduate honors thesis completed by Patrick Schmidt in 1978, now revisited and moderately updated following a long career in international law. Harvard's Department of Social Relations was formalized in 1946 in a merger of forces from sociology, social anthropology, and social and clinical psychology in an intended interdisciplinary collaboration. [Extracted from the article]