Given the history of the field, this exercise probably is a sign of health.While self-scrutiny can be overdone-the late mathematician, John von Neumann, once described the state of a discipline that had become far too involved with self-study by coining the term "baroquism"-a reexamination by public administrationists of where the field has been and where it is going appears worthwhile. As an intellectual enterprise, public administration has reached a point of radical departure from its own past.