Book Notes

• Author: Stephen G. Walker
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1177/106591297903200236
• Published date: 01 June 1979
• Date: 01 June 1979
• Subject Matter: Book Note

248

Western Political Quarterly.

imbalance of the sample (only

11

women out of

65

persons interviewed), although

it is partially justified by the custom of women going

to

live with their husbands’

families, which implies that men

will

have deeper knowledge of their immediate

areas than women. On the other hand, the authors have done

a

good job of inte-

.grating their intervieu-derived data with the literature, English and Chinese, relat-

ing to their subject both in pre-Communist and more contemporary periods.

In

fact, the Parish-IVhyte study rings true in the contest of the revelations of

the past

two

years, since the ascendancy of Deng.

IVe

are no longer surprised to

learn that in some places geomancers and astrologers survived, or that some ancestor

tablets destroyed by Red Guards in the frenzy

of

the Cultural Revolution were sub-

sequently restored. In brief, the authors give

us

a

very basic understanding of

the

rural

realities upon which the overthrow of the “Gang

of

FouP

could find peasant

support. The book deserves

a

very wide readership, not only among sociologists

and anthropologists, but among

all

political scientists grappling with problems of

social continuity and change.

Columbia

Uiiicersity

MORTON

H.

FRIED

BOOK

NOTES

Isolation

or

Interdetendence?

Today’s

Choices

for

Tomorrow’s

IVorld.

Edited by

MORTON

A.

KAPLAN

(Kew York: The Free Press, 1975.

Pp.

254.

$10.00.)

The chapters in this book were prepared for

a

conference at the University of

Chicago in April 1974. Their purpose is to assess the range of choices available to

’.$e

United States across

a

wide spectrum of activities in the global arena.

As

a

heuristic device the authors critically examine the feasibility of an American

isc-

lationist policy in various spheres of international activity

-

economic, scientific,

ecological, military

-

in order to juxtapose the consequences

of

this policy against

the present trends toward interdependence in these areas. Most of the papers are

provocative and well-written.

Of

particular interest is the essay by Stedman Noble,

whose assessment

of

physical resources and political options facing the United

States includes

a

critique of the Club of Rome’s conclusions regarding the exhaus-

tion

of

the world’s resources.

STEPHEN

G.

IVALKER