Can Ancient History Still Engage the Social Sciences?

This volume questions the morality of engaging in model building as an approach to social scientific, including historical, inquiry. But are models, or the intellectual traditions associated with this particular approach, the problem? And should (or can) ancient historians dispense with models on account of such concerns? This paper suggests that much of the methodological toolkit—including models—that ancient historians tend to criticize is in fact a crucial and potentially necessary tool, given the nature of our evidence. Moreover, whereas some aspects of the intellectual tradition that is associated with model building can be considered morally (as well as empirically) problematic, the focus of ancient historians on what is termed “NIE” is misplaced. By abandoning this boogeyman, and engaging with institutional theories and methods as they exist today, ancient historians will find a rich interdisciplinary tradition that can greatly benefit from their contribution.