One could approach the Gulbenkian Commission as an equation as well: two scholars from the natural sciences plus six from the social sciences plus two from the humanities. Likewise, in search of the "roots" of the authors' disciplines through the history of the social sciences, the report reads as a summation of structure (Chapter One) and agency (Chapter Two) which equals the current state of debate over the validity of the established models (Chapters Four and Five). That is, the sum of the equation forces one to rethink the original factors. The equation does not involve any radical new theoretical models, and similarly this report does not call for a radical restructuring of the existing systems. Rather, the authors call on the social scientists themselves to "take a hard look at their present structures and try to bring their revised intellectual perceptions of a useful division of labor into line with the organizational framework they necessarily construct" (96) (before their administrators do it for them). The call of Wallerstein et al. captures the spirit of the Gulbenkian Report. The same Commission is attempting to work within the existing models of the academic systems while injecting a new vigor that they hope will "encourage moves in the correct direction" (105). Among the alternative models to the traditional disciplinary divisions suggested include FLACSO (Facultad Latinoamericana de Ciencias Sociales), the ZiF ( Zentrum für interdisziplinäre Forschung) at Bielefeld University (Germany), and the Europa-Universität Viadrina in Frankfurt an Oder.

The report comes as the culmination to a series of meetings of the Gulbenkian Commission on the Restructuring of the Social Sciences held between June 1994 and April 1995. Professor Immanuel Wallerstein, Director of the Fernand Braudel Center of Binghamton University, chaired the commission, which included scholars from various countries and disciplines. Perhaps in attempt to de-emphasize an affiliation with a specific university department, the descriptions of the members of the committee list the field of specialty first, the country of origin second, and only third their university or organization and special appointments. In addition to Wallerstein, the members included: Calestous Juma, science and technology studies, Kenya; Evelyn Fox Keller, physics, USA; Jürgen Kocka, history, Germany; Dominique Lecourt, philosophy, France; V.Y. Mudimbe, Romance languages, Zaire; Kinhide Mushakoji, political science, Japan; Ilya Prigogine, chemistry, Belgium; Peter J. Taylor, geography, UK; Michel-Rolph Trouillot, anthropology, Haiti.

Written collectively by the commission, the book is divided into four sections in chronological order. In the first chapter the commission attempts to show how social science has been historically constructed since the eighteenth century and divided into the specific disciplines that are still in use today—history, economics, sociology, political science, and anthropology. The second chapter presents the challenges to these divisions that began around 1945 and the third chapter outlines thematically the implications of these challenges to the future of the social sciences. The fourth chapter concludes with four practical suggestions, which the commission proposes in order to restructure the social sciences.

According to Wallerstein et al., in the nineteenth century the disciplines were spread along a spectrum from the sciences (mathematics, physics, chemistry, biology) to the humanities (literature, art, music) with the social sciences somewhere in between. Idiographic history was often a part of the humanities and social science was considered closer to the natural sciences. This spectrum also highlights the two spheres of knowledge, or the "two cultures," already in place by the nineteenth century—those of science and art—with science becoming increasingly more prestigious with the rejection of Aristotelian metaphysics and the triumph of the Newtonian model of a symmetry between the past and the future. The commission sets out to explain how, and more importantly why, these divisions occurred in their historical, political, and economic context. For one, these divisions coincided with, and were linked to, the revival of the university as the "principal institutional locus for the creation of knowledge" (6). This is not to say, however, that all disciplines were legitimated through the university system. Having already established their ability to produce "certain" knowledge through empirical work in the name of progress, the natural sciences succeeded in gaining support outside of the university system. In addition to the production of practical and immediate results, the certainty that science claimed about structures allowed a greater political control over the potential of an intrusion of human agency (and thus a change in the system). On an economic level, the separate disciplines, based on the belief that the depth of specialization would increase the quality of production of knowledge, allowed scholars to claim a specific and unique knowledge of a subject; henceforth, they had a social utility. The partitioning of the social sciences into the disciplines recognized today reflects this rationale.

Although the report clearly outlines the structural development of the disciplines defined as social sciences, it is not until the second chapter, and after 1945, that human agency is inserted into the equation. This agency comes most importantly in the form of "forgotten" groups inside and outside the Western social sciences. Wallerstein et al. include in this group "women, the non-West as a whole, 'minority' groups within Western countries, and other groups historically defined as politically and socially marginal" (54). Not only have these new voices in the social sciences contributed to an expanded subject of study after 1945, but Wallerstein et al., argue that they also have challenged the basic theoretical model as inherently faulty due to a priori prejudices.

Questions raised in the other "two cultures"—science and the humanities—have also challenged the epistemology of the social sciences. Developments in the natural sciences have led to a recognition of the limitations of the Newtonian model. The model, according to Wallerstein et al., is not wrong, so much as it is only able to explain a limited segment of reality. These developments have also led to a complication of nature as "active and creative," not deterministic (65). Furthermore, the work being done in cultural studies in the humanities has politically challenged the supremacy of a certain science as "legitimator of knowledge" (65). Such developments began to blur the boundaries between the three domains.

Perhaps the most provocative challenges of Open the Social Sciences are the four fundamental questions the report poses and that once again form an equation. "A better appreciation of the validity of the ontological distinction between humans and nature" + "a broader definition of the boundaries within which social action occurs" + "a proper balance of the antinomy of universalism and particularism" = objectivity—that is "the outcome of human learning" (92-3). These are the four questions that pervade the book, reminding social scientists of the importance of all parts of the equation. To help solve the equation, or problem, of the social sciences, the report offers four suggestions for restructuring the social sciences. They are: (1) the establishment of thematically organized, one-year research groups of scholars; (2) the funding of five-year interdisciplinary research programs; (3) the compulsory joint appointment of professors; and (4) the requirement of interdisciplinary work for graduate students. Of course, the main goal of these suggestions is to conserve a structure that will prevent the confusion that threatens interdisciplinary work, while allowing individuals to work within and across disciplines—a true opening of the social sciences on both a theoretical and practical level. One may ask, however, whether the leit-motif of an equation allows a space and a sense of social utility for all scholars in the production of knowledge and whether this would in turn produce a radical enough change to the system.