Book Reviews : The Idea of Culture in the Social Sciences. Edited by LOUIS SCHNEIDER and CHARLES M. BONJEAN. (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1973. Pp. ix, 149. $9.95.)
| Author | Morton Fried |
| DOI | 10.1177/106591297402700110 |
| Published date | 01 March 1974 |
| Date | 01 March 1974 |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
182
BOOK
REVIEWS
The
Idea
of
Culture
in
the
Social
Sciences.
Edited
by
LOUIS
SCHNEIDER
and
CHARLES
M.
BONJEAN.
(New
York:
Cambridge
University
Press,
1973.
Pp.
ix,
149.
$9.95.)
Remind
me
never
to
undertake
to
review
books
like
this
that
ostensibly
have
a
central
core,
but
actually
fragment
into
separate
essays,
each
drawing
a
different
kind
of
critical
reaction.
In
this
particular
volume
the
problems
are
exacerbated
as
the
editors
have
arranged
the
contents
in
accordance
with
their
capacity
for
irritating
me;
the
essays
appearing
in
the
front
of
the
book
producing
my
most
unfavorable
reactions.
I
was
sorely
tempted
to
drop
the
whole
thing,
but
could
not
because
of
the
reviewer’s
obligation.
Since
some
readers of
this
review
may
react
similarly
(others
will
doubtlessly
disagree,
reversing
my
conception
of
merit),
it
is
my
first
duty
to
encourage
them
to
read
on,
since
the
later
contributions
are
very
much
worth
while
and
it
would
be
a
pity
to
miss
them
because
of
the
first
two.
Indeed,
one
of
the
best
things
about
this
thin
volume
is
the
concluding
paper
by
one
of
the
editors,
Louis
Schneider.
He
makes
an
attempt
to
review
all
the
contribu-
tions
and
then
to
go
beyond
them
to
indicate
some
of the
potential
that
still
rests
with
the
concept
of
culture
as
an
organizing
or
illuminating
mechanism
in
the
social
sciences.
It
is
of
interest
that
he
does
so
in
part
because
the
other
papers
leave
him
admittedly
uneasy.
I
seriously
counsel
readers
to
begin
the
book
with
Schneider’s
essay
and
proceed
in
reverse
order.
That
means
turning,
after
Schneider,
to
David
Sopher’s
thoughtful
and
in-
formative
discussion
of
aspects
of
the
use
of
the
culture
concept
in
the
work
of
certain
geographers,
then
to
the
more
problem-oriented
treatment,
by
Robert
F.
Berkhofer,
Jr.,
of
the
effects
of
social
science
notions
of
culture
on
the
most-recent-
but-one
generation
of
American
historians.
Lucian
Pye
and
Kenneth
Boulding
are
then
represented,
each
by
an
essay
which
could
be
readily
identified
with
its
author,
even
if
contributed
anonymously.
In
Pye’s
case
this
means
closely
associating
the
&dquo;political
culture&dquo;
approach
with
the
analysis
of
psychological
factors
attendant
upon
or
forming
the
background
to
political
action.
Next
in
reverse
order
is
a
very
short
piece
of
Talcott
Parsons.
What
is
one
to
say
about
this?
Parsons
believes
that
information
theory
has
provided
a
break-
through
in
the
social
sciences,
one
that
casts
the
old
materialist/idealist
contention
on
the
dust
heap
of
history.
He
compares
this
advance
to
one
in
biology
which
had
the
effect
of
making
it
&dquo;meaningless
to
state
significant
problems
in
the
old
form.&dquo;
Yet
that
is
precisely
what
Parsons
is
up
to,
and
dragging
in
cybernetics
doesn’t
change
his
old-fashioned
idealistic
approach
one
bit.
Finally,
the
first
essay
is
by
James
A.
Boon,
an
anthropologist.
For
me
this
contribution
was
the
most
fatuous
in
the
book.
For
Boon,
culture
is
basically
neither
theory
nor
heuristic
model,
but
&dquo;a
more
or
less
articulate
sense
of
dilemma
which
helps
to
prevent
anthropologists
from
committting
inadequate
reductionisms....&dquo;
Anthropologists
may
also
find
humor
in
Boulding’s
latter-day
discovery
of
the
gift,
and
in
his
criticism
of
&dquo;some
anthropologists&dquo;
who
fail
&dquo;to
understand
certain
as-
pects
of the
economics
of
primitive
societies
because
they
have
not
seen
that
ex-
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