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Reviews the book "Certainties and Doubts: Collected Papers, 1962-1985," by George Caspar Homans.

Reviews the book "The Sociological Eye: Selected Papers," by Everett C. Hughes.

The article reviews the book "Freud and American Sociology," by Philip Manning.

Reviews the book "The Sociology of the Professions: Lawyers, Doctors and Others," edited by R. Dingwall and P. Lewis.

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 examines a maritime community currently undergoing change as it has increased contact with mainstream institutions. Based on participant observation techniques, it concentrates on the interplay of change pressures and resistance mechanisms, which results in tension on the institutional level and ambivalence on the individual level. Vertical ties to mainstream institutions are becoming more important than community horizontal ones, calling into question the power of the sole decision-making institution on the Island, the church, and overloading existing mechanisms of social control. Questions are raised concerning how the community will become more tightly linked into mainstream society. Two outcomes--"seasonal autonomy" and "museum community"--are viewed as possibilities, depending on whether control of the linkage is with development capital or the state. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Reviews the book "Regional Variation in Modern Greece and Cyprus," edited by M. Dimen and E. Fridedl.

Reviews the book "Qualitative and Quantitative Social Research," edited by Robert K. Merton, James S. Coleman and Peter H. Rossi.

The article reviews the book "The Sociology of Development," edited by B. R. Roberts, R. G. Cushing and C. Woods.

Reviews the book "Emile Durkheim and the Reformation of Sociology," by Stjepan G. Mestrovic.

Reviews the book "Practice & Progress: British Sociology, 1950-1980," edited by Philip Abrams, Rosemary Deem, Janet Finch and Paul Rock.

Reviews the book "Comparative Social Research," vol. 2, edited by Richard F. Tomasson.

Reviews the book "Sociology and Development," by Emanuel de Kadt and Gavin Williams.

Reviews the book "Structure and Process in Latin America," edited by A. Strickson and S. M. Greenfield.

Reviews the book 'The Individual in a Social World,' by S. Milgram.

Reviews the book "Conflict and Development," edited by P. Williams.

Reviews the book "New Directions in the Sociology of Health," by Pamela Abbott and Geoff Payne.

Reviews the book "Readings in the Sociology of Nursing," by Robert Dingwall and Jean Mcintosh.

Reviews the book "Private Risks and Public Dangers," edited by S. Scott, G. Williams, S. Platt and H. Thomas.

Reviews the book "Essays in Sociological Theory," by Talcott Parsons.

Reviews the book "Comparative Studies in Sociology," edited by Richard F. Tomasson.

Reviews the book "Macro-Sociological Theory: Perspectives on Sociological Theory," vol. 1, edited by S. N. Eisenstadt and H. J. Helle.

Reviews the book "Literary Criticism and Sociology: Yearbook of Comparative Criticism, Vol. V," edited by Joseph Strelka.

Reviews the book "Social Stratification: Research and Theory for the 1970s," edited by Edward O. Laumann.

Reviews the book "Parent and Child: Studies in Family Behavior," by James H. S. Bossard.

Reviews the book "Lund Studies in Geography: Ser."

Reviews the book "Social Thought: From Hammurabi to Comte," by Rollin Chambliss.

This article reviews several books including "Sociology and Medicine: selected essays by P.M. Strong," by A. Murcott, "Divide and Conquer: a comparative history of medical specialization," by G. Weisz, and "Synthesizing Qualitative and Quantitative Health Evidence: A Guide to Methods," by C. Pope, N. Mays, and J. Popay.

Edward Tylor had envisioned anthropology to be comprised of ethnology and ethnography in equal parts, but today ethnography dominates the field. In this paper, we examine two reasons for the refugee status of ethnology. First, we look at the notorious "Galton effect." Second, we examine the problem of defining and using cultural units, particularly when positivistic and static theories and methods of culture have been largely discredited by anthropology. We argue against any formulaic solutions to these problems and show that for each research question one needs to reconsider the criteria for how to construct cultural units and how to ensure that the cultures under study are not merely replicas of one another. We show that previous solutions to these issues are limited because they fail to appreciate the contingent and multidimensional nature of culture. We also argue that, instead of a "Galton problem," there is actually a "Galton asset," which can be used to study historical and emergent communicative networks. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Reviews the book "The Politics of Field Research: Sociology Beyong Enlightenment," edited by Jaber F. Gubrium and David Silverman.

Reviews the book "Tönnies beute. Zur Aktualität von Ferdinand Tönnies," edited by L. Clausen.

Reviews the book "Structures of Power and Constraint: Papers in Honor of Peter M. Blau," edited by Craig Calhoun.

Reviews the book "Understanding Social Impacts: Assessing the Effects of Public Projects," by Kurt Finsterbusch.

Reviews the book "Contemporary Issues in Theory and Research: A Metasociological Perspective," edited by William E. Snizer, Ellsworth R. Fuhrman and Michael K. Miller.

The article presents a review essay on the book "Talcott Parsons on National Socialism," edited by Uta Gerhardt. Parsons' essays in the book are full of insights into the sociological aspects of fascist movements, the social structure of both pre-Nazi and Nazi Germany, propaganda and social control and memoranda for political and military intervention. Beyond sociologist Max Weber, a deep impact that psychoanalyst Sigmund Freud made on him can be seen in his essays. His use of psychoanalytical concepts predates the psychohistorical approach 20-30 years later and is reminiscent of sociologists Erich Fromm and Wilhelm Reich. His April 25, 1942 presidential address before the Eastern Sociological Society thoughtfully but turgidly makes theoretical connections between structural and psychological levels of society and variables of class, tradition and social access as important consequences of both. Parsons even touched on the issue of 'evil.' He was ahead of his time with regard to feminism. It was true that Parsons wrote in somewhat of a vacuum. He and the world were unaware of the full implications of evil during the Holocaust, that is, of the Final Solution. But he tried. He merits our intellectual and moral respect for that.

Any collection of papers purporting to set out new directions for a discipline, like sociology, whose fundamental orientations are humanist, might reasonably be expected to contain within it items that may themselves be collected into one of two principal categories. The first is of work that brings radically into question existing ontological and, hence, epistemological bases of the discipline; the second, of work that, developing from a fundamental, though not an unquestioning, acceptance of those bases, seeks to modify them in the light of its experiential practice in their terms. Work of both kinds requires the courage and rigour of a strong and serious commitment to sustain sociology as a discipline through questioning thoughtfully its basic tenets in relation to the lived, social experience both of those who conduct it and of those whose conduct is its topic. Work in the second category can be too easily confused, however, with that of a third—the scholarship of the disciplinary cartographer, whose work is the recording and reporting upon the work of others in his field. Such work informs those in search of the new of the names and appearances of the epistemological territories that they are leaving behind, and of the conceptual topography of some of the issues they may expect to have to negotiate during their journey. As such, and if it is thorough, it can be valuable. But it is too often an indication of unreflective neophilia amongst sociologists than of new directions in sociology. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Reviews the book "Kansas Rural Institutions IX. Country Weekly," by F. D. Farrell.

Reviews the book "Local Politics, Development and Participation: A Cross-National Study of Interrelationships," edited by F. C. Bruhns, F. Cazzola and J. Wiatr.

Reviews the book "The Idea of Culture in the Social Sciences," by Louis Schneider and Charles Bonjean.

Reviews the book "Introduction to the Sociology of 'Developing Societies,'" edited by Hamza Alavi and Trodor Shanin.

Reviews several books on sociology. "Society," by David Frisby and Derek Sayer; "The Ethnomethodologists," by Wes Sharrock and Bob Anderson; "Beliefs and Ideology," by Kenneth Thompson; "Equality," by Bryan S. Turner.

Reviews two books on sociology. "Marital Violence," edited by Norman Johnson; "The Family, Politics and Social Theory," by D. H. J. Morgan.

Reviews the book "State, Market and Social Regulation: New Perspectives on Italy," by M. Regini.

Reviews the book "Entwicklungspolitik I. Soziokulturelle Grundfragen," by D. Goetze.

Reviews the book "Sociology and the Demystification of the Modern World," by John Rex.

Reviews the book "Towards an Integrated Society: Reflections on Planning, Social Policy, and Rural Institutions," by Tarlok Singh.

Reviews the book "The Role of the Land Grant in the Social Organization and Social Processes of a Spanish-American Village in New Mexico," by Olen E. Leonard.

Reviews the book "Benefits and Burdens of Rural development: Some Public Policy Viewpoints."