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Anatomies of America: Sociological Perspectives. by Philip Ehrensaft; Amitai EtzioniReview by: Robert E. StaufferSocial Forces, Vol. 49, No. 1 (Sep., 1970), pp. 153-154Published by: Oxford University PressStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2575767 .

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BOOK REVIEWS 153

Richard Jensen's "History and the Political Scientist" traces history's contribution to the de- velopment of political science in America and out- lines appropriate uses of it by the contemporary fifth generation of political scientists concerned above all to develop empirical theory. In "An- thropology and Political Science: Courtship or Marriage," Ronald Cohen describes how an in- crease in data variance can be gained from the rich resources of his field by students increasingly aware of the sociopolitical milieu. Scott Greer discusses the relation between "Sociology and Political Science." While separated from an earlier political economy, in studying society as a whole, they may be rejoined. This has been the domain of sociology, but Greer finds the social sciences are one, as their basic unit, men in ag- gregates, is the same.

"From the Sociology of Politics to Political Sociology," by Giovanni Sartori, attacks conven- tional political sociology at its weak spot, the tendency to reduce politics to the social. This re- sults in a limited sociology of politics. Much of it is faulted for heavy emphasis on class voting, which he finds empirically unproven. Sartori per- suasively argues for a political sociology which serves as an interdisciplinary bridge. His most important point, though, is that the Lipset-Rokkan answer to "how conflicts and cleavages are trans- lated into a party system" in their Party System and Voter Alignments is a landmark for political sociology. But Sartori had declared already that Parsonian models had little use in political anal- ysis and yet, Lipset-Rokkan claimed to ground their views with Parsonian concepts. This goes to confirm the reviewer's suspicions that the brilliant analysis made after paying homage to Parsons for 26 pages could have stood on its own.

William Mitchell has switched from social sys- tem models to the new political economists who rest analysis on exchange models in "The Shape of Political Theory to Come." This still may be too rational for the more complex real world. In "The Relationship between Economy and the Other Social Sciences: The Province of a Social Report," Mancur Olson, Jr., argues that the economist's ideal to maximize efficiency is polar to the sociologist's ideal to minimize alienation through institutional integration. Thus, a social report would weigh how much of one ideal must be given up to get more of the other. With "Personality and Politics: Problems of Evidence, Inference and Conceptualization," Fred I. Green- stein shows a way to study political psychology. Using Smith's "map" of the interrelations among the types of relevant variables, this chapter is a very good account of the pertinent literature weighed against the map. Moving to "Psychiatry and Political Science: Some Reflections and Pros- pects," Arnold A. Rogow gives reasons for no healthy marriage between the two areas including: the long-time non-behavioral stance of political science; the Freudian challenge to rational models

of behavior; and the contemporary preference for "hard" research contrasted with the alleged "soft- ness" of psychoanalysis and psychiatry.

Jensen appears lagain with "American Election Analysis: A Case History of Methodological In- novation and Diffusion." He finds the transition from traditional approaches to behavioralism im- portantly aided by the analysis of election sta- tistics, traced in voting studies from the 1870s to 1932. Finally, in "Statistics and Politics: The Need for Causal Data Analysis," Hayward R. Alker, Jr., shows the development of quantitative methods from German and English roots in the seventeenth century. Reading this chapter makes it clear that causal modeling in the behavioral sciences presently is no passing fad and those of us not in Jensen's fifth generation should con- tinue to brush up our statistics.

This book will make a contribution if nothing else is gained from its reading than a firmer feel of the common ground on which many social scientists now stand in individual and collaborative research.

ANATOMIES OF AMERICA: SOCIOLOGICAL PERSPEC- TIVES. Edited by Philip Ehrensaft and Amitai Etzioni. New York: Macmillan, 1969. 499 pp. Cloth, $9.95; paper, $4.95.

Reviewed by ROBERT E. STAUFFER, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

While it will probably serve the same market, this collection of articles, all written by sociol- ogists, is not simply another of the current on- slaught of introductory Readers. And therein in a sense, lies both its virtues and defects. First, the editors have chosen pieces dealing only with the United States, as their title indicates, and in so doing both give more coherence to the book and perpetuate our limiting preoccupation with our own society. (With regard to the latter point, I must strenuously object to the editors' contention in the Preface that American sociologists ". . . are much more inclined to explore the internal pro- cesses of other societies than the making of our own." My impression is that American sociology must plead guilty to exactly the opposite charge.) Second, the collection includes few articles of a primarily conceptual nature, such that while the selections will no doubt thereby have more in- herent interest to the student, they provide rela- tively little sense of sociology as a theoretical discipline. This, incidentally, is a disadvantage not corrected by the editors' section introductions, for these are unusually skimpy. Finally, and re- latedly, many of the selections are popularized essays, often drawn from the better periodicals, and while this means that they are highly readable and often quite stimulating, it also means that the student will acquire little sense of sociological re-

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154 SOCIAL FORCES

search from reading the book. Thus, by conscious- ly editing the kind of book they did, Ehrensaft and Etzioni have provided us with an appealing collection but one with real limitations if used in the typical introductory course. (On the other hand, the book is generally ideal for service courses on American Society.)

The collection is divided into nine parts, be- ginning with an overview (an essay by Daniel Bell entitled "Toward a Communal Society" and one by Raymond Aron on "Europe and the United States") and continuing with sections on politics, work and class, race and ethnicity, religion and culture, education, urbanization, deviance, and family and demography. Overall, I found the selections very good, within the limitations noted above. I do, however, want to mention two criti- cisms. The Aron piece was included to demon- strate the "foreign aspects of contemporary America," but focuses almost entirely on military and economic relations between the U.S. and Europe, and consequences of these relations for European politics. I applaud this inclusion but would have appreciated at least one additional article pertaining to the United States' impact on and involvement in the "third world." Second, I was very disappointed to find that the only selec- tion specifically devoted to big corporations was that by W. Lloyd Warner. His central concern is with the moral restraints by which he alleges society severely curtails the power of the large cor- poration, and the unaware reader could easily come away with the two conclusions that morality (not countervailing power) is what restrains cor- porations and that corporations are by now rela- tively benign institutions serving the public good. I find both conclusions remarkably naive and cannot understand why the editors permitted this essay to stand alone.

On the other hand, let me again stress that generally the articles were well-chosen in the sense of being interesting, timely, and perceptive; and several, e.g., Cloward and Elman's "Poverty, In- justice, and the Welfare State," are excellent. In fact, my criticisms notwithstanding, I think the book is one of the better collections presently available.

Other

DICTIONARY OF MODERN SOCIOLOGY. Prepared by Thomas Ford Hoult. Totowa, New Jersey: Littlefield, Adams, 1969. 408 pp. $3.45.

Reviewed by PAUL MICHAEL ROMAN, Tulane Uni- versity

Attempts at developing common reference points for the use of sociological concepts through codifi- cation of patterns of current usage are reflected in the recent revision of the International Encyclo- pedia of the Social Sciences and Gould and Kolb's Dictionary of the Social Sciences. A less ambitious

effort intended for student use is Mitchell's Dic- tionary of Sociology. Hoult's Dictionary is ap- parently intended as an addition to this collection as a tool for introductory sociology students. It is very close to the pattern found in Fairchild's Dictionary of Sociology, although much less com- plete than this latter work.

As a device for sensitizing students to the nature of a range of elementary and middle-range con- cepts, Hoult's compilation is adequate. But the basic question is the value or necessity of such a device, given the typically adequate elementary definitions available in almost every introductory text. Were not the other volumes cited above available to students at least in reference libraries, there might be a need for this book. But com- paring the breadth and depth of coverage of this volume with its several predecessors, it is difficult to think of an occasion where an instructor would desire a student to use this compilation in pref- erence to the others available.

Hoult's basic difficulty stems from his attempt to develop a dictionary without collaboratibn. Ncne of the other available volumes was under- taken with this pretense, and the consequence here is a very shallow coverage of the field. Although Hoult includes an impressive list of "specialist consultants" in various subfields, he does not specify the manner in which they were consulted. Hoult clearly indicates that none of them actually prepared definitions. Without evaluating Hoult's definitional abilities in any subarea, the assump- tion that any single sociologist, even with informal consultation, can do an adequate job of compre- hensively defining all the important concepts of sociology seems ungrounded.

Hoult's mode of presentation involves his own brief definition of a concept, followed in about half the cases by a very brief quotation from some work where the concept is employed. In rare instances, several quotations are provided. Also in about half the instances, cross-references to other concepts are given. If the quality of the result is compared with those appearing in the volumes cited above, one can see that Hoult's definitions are sensitizing, but hardly comprehen- sive. Hoult's modus operandi does provide a very long bibliography in the event the reader desires to consult original sources.

Probably any sociologist would find gaps in the coverage of his own specialty areas. This re- viewer, for example, was dismayed by the absence of any definitions related to the labeling theory of deviance, particularly the central concepts of "pri- mary" and "secondary" deviance. Likewise, the inclusion of such specialized penological concepts as the "Elmira system" and the "Pennsylvania system," with no reference to "drug," "addiction," "marijuana," "schizophrenia," or "community psy- chiatry," indicates the questionable coverage of deviance and social problems in the dictionary. There are certainly many other gaps to which Hoult clearly admits; this is completely under-

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