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Reviews two books on probation. "Punishment, Custody and the Community," edited by Huw Rees and Eryl Hall Williams; "Probation: Politics, Policy and Practice," by Tim May.

Reviews the book "Narrow Roads to Gene Land: The Collected Papers of W. D. Hamilton," vol. 1, "The Evolution of Social Behaviour," by W.D. Hamilton.

Reviews the book "Structures of Power and Constraint: Papers in Honor of Peter M. Blau," edited by Craig Calhourn, Marshall W. Meyer and W. Richard Scott.

This article comments on several articles about the phenomena of war and peace in relation to sociology. Several authors recognize the threat posed to Marxism by the phenomenon of war. Weaker sociologists will take refuge in useful phrases, such as relative autonomy, uneven development and determination in the last instance. One of the legacies of Marxism is the division between base and superstructure, and its idea that political decisions are the effects, but not the causes of economic change. Class analysis comes to the fore only in two papers, one by John Mattausch, the other by Graham Day. Mattauch's unconcealed nostalgia for mass working class support sits unhappily with the fact that the majority of activists are state class radicals. Other papers are more interested in peace movements than in peace. They make no reference to the actual effect of such movements, for example, in contributing to the pre-war strategy of Adolph Hitler. Only one paper offers a definition of war. This occurs as a prelude to David Riches' discussion of the peaceful Eskimos. War, according to Riches, is the authorized employment of physical force against other persons, as means by which groups competing for control of public resources and benefits attempt to influence the outcome of the competition in their favor.

This paper argues that Piketty's book should not simply be seen as that of an economist, but that it contains significant resources for sociologists to draw upon. These are firstly, this approach to social science and his use of visualizations which chime closely with recent claims about the power of description. Secondly I consider his conceptualization of time and history - which in rebutting epochal arguments about the speed of contemporary change allows for a much better appreciation of the 'long durée'; and finally his conceptualization of social classes and privilege through his elaboration of a sociology of accumulation and inheritance. In all these ways, Piketty's work assists in developing an account of elites and wealth which should be highly productive for future sociology. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Piketty's Capital (2014) primarily describes and analyses changes in the distribution of wealth and annual incomes. This paper focuses on his policy proposals that make up Part Four of the book. Piketty defends the 'social state' but he discusses it largely in terms of distribution and redistribution between tax units. This neglects the important role of social policy in promoting recognition and redistribution of income and opportunities that is related to gender, race, disability and sexual orientation. Nor does Piketty consider inequalities in health which effect life-time incomes, nor the impact of housing policies on house prices and the distribution of wealth. It is argued that Piketty's approach to social security is simplistic and plays down the complexity of competing policy goals. On taxation, Piketty defends progressive taxation and proposes a global capital levy. The latter proposal runs into formidable problems in seeking global taxation in a world of nation states. Rather than seeking a policy that is, for the foreseeable future, wholly politically impractical, a case is made for less idealistic but more practical and urgent tax coordination between nations to address the widespread avoidance of taxation that large corporations and the very wealthy are now permitted - taxation on which the future of the social state depends. The importance of human and social capital, which are largely set aside by Piketty, are discussed. Finally,it is argued that his approach to policy is to describe trends and propose amelioration of growing inequality rather than to identify causes of the trends and propose policies that might address the causes. Nevertheless, the importance of his work in bringing issues of inequality to the fore, especially among economists, is recognized and applauded. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]