Book Reviews : Parkinson's Law and other Studies in Administration. By C. NORTHCOTE PARKINSON. (Boston: Houghton, Mifflin Company. 1957. Pp. xi, 113. $3.00.) The Statesman. By HENRY TAYLOR. (New York: The New American Library. 1958. Paperback edition. Pp. 159. $.50.) The Revelations of Dr. Modesto. By ALAN HARRINGTON. (New York: Al fred A. Knopf. 1955. Pp. 256. $3.95.) The Hidden Persuaders. By VANCE PACKARD. (New York: The David McKay Company. 1957. Pp. 275. $4.00.) The Organization Man. By WILLIAM H. WHYTE, JR. (Garden City: Dou bleday & Company. 1957. Pp. 471. $1.45.) The Power Elite. By C. WRIGHT MILLS. (New York: Oxford University Press. 1959. Paperback edition. Pp. $1.95.)

• Author: Lewis Polk
• Date: 01 December 1959
• Published date: 01 December 1959
• DOI: 10.1177/106591295901200447
• Subject Matter: Articles

1132
a table of statutory instruments, a list of abbreviations, a brief code of state
succession rules, and an appendix giving Law Officers’ Opinions and Foreign
.
Office Memoranda on questions of state succession for the years 1823-1901.
CHARLES E. MARTIN.
University of Washington.
Parkinson’s Law and other Studies in Administration. By C. NORTHCOTE
PARKINSON. (Boston: Houghton, Mifflin Company. 1957. Pp. xi, 113.
$3.00.)
The Statesman. By HENRY TAYLOR. (New York: The New American
Library. 1958. Paperback edition. Pp. 159. $.50.)
The Revelations of Dr. Modesto. By ALAN HARRINGTON. (New York: Al-
fred A. Knopf. 1955. Pp. 256. $3.95.)
The Hidden Persuaders. By VANCE PACKARD. (New York: The David
McKay Company. 1957. Pp. 275. $4.00.)
The Organization Man. By WILLIAM H. WHYTE, JR. (Garden City: Dou-
bleday & Company. 1957. Pp. 471. $1.45.)
The Power Elite. By C. WRIGHT MILLS. (New York: Oxford University
Press. 1959. Paperback edition. Pp. $1.95.)
Shortly before Christmas, in 1956, at the inevitable office-parties which
precede the more sober family yuletide celebrations in Suburbia, cynical
young &dquo;organization men&dquo; were giving each other presents of Alan Harring-
ton’s Revelations of Dr. Modesto, bound and marked copies of the London
Economist containing Professor C. Northcote Parkinson’s &dquo;Parkinson’s Law,&dquo;
and William Whyte’s sacred volume on The Organization Man. A year
later the same &dquo;junior executives&dquo; were limiting their gifts to harmless
trifles, trying to remember choice remarks by Ernst Dichter and James Vicary
cribbed out of The Hidden Persuaders -
without revealing the source, of
course; and doing a little experimenting in subliminal stimulation. Another
year passed eventfully. By this time, political scientists began to be aware of
the titillating possibilities of Whyte and Parkinson -
which no longer in-
terested the secular Second Estate, a few of whom carried in their pockets a
reprint of Taylor’s T he Statesman, to which they had been attracted by
Parkinson’s introduction. Came Groundhog Day, 1959, and both organiza-
tion men and intellectuals with unerring eye singled out Mills’s The Power
Elite as it stood diffidently among the buried paperbacks in the literature
dispensers at their favorite drugstore. Not since Burnham’s Managerial
Revolution had a new study (actually, the hard-cover edition came out
three years earlier) held out the hope to ambitious young men that they
might rise above the morass of conformity and enter into the kingdom of
Mammon and Il Principe.

---

1133
There does not seem to be any reliable breakdown on who is buying and
reading Parkinson’s Law. My own volume is from the eighth printing and
by the time this review is published a few more are sure to have been issued.
Is Parkinson ironic or realistic? The response of the reviewer depends
on his confidence in his own position....