DODD, STUART CARTER. Dimensions of So ciety. Pp. ix, 944. New York: The Macmillan Co., 1942. $12.00

• DOI: 10.1177/000271624222100172
• Date: 01 May 1942
• Published date: 01 May 1942
• Subject Matter: Articles

230

and

government

administration,

a

new

field

of

science

has

come

to

be

defined-that

of

human

relations.&dquo;

Few

workers

in

the

so-

cial

sciences

will

question

this,

and

still

fewer

will

desire

to

place

any

obstacles

in

the

way

of

this

developing

synthesis.

How-

ever,

new

sciences

deserve

new

designations,

and

it

seems

regrettable

that

the

authors

should

have

elected

to

call

the

present

book

&dquo;Principles

of

Anthropology.&dquo;

Their

flat

statement

that

&dquo;anthropology

is

the

study

of

human

relations&dquo;

(p.

11)

is

not

in

ac-

cordance

with

the

long-established

usage

of

that

term,

especially

in

view

of

the

very

limited

and

specific

meaning

attached

to

&dquo;human

relations&dquo;

throughout

the

book.

It

seems

to

the

reviewer

that

it

is

quite

on

a

par

with

defining

physiology

as

the

study

of

digestive

processes,

or

psychology

as

the

study

of

learning.

Even

specialists

in

the

social

or

cultural

aspects

of

anthropology

will

be

somewhat

startled

to

find

a

book

by

this

title

which

completely

ignores

not

only

physical

anthropology

but

also

the

problems

of

social

structure

and

cultural

process.

In

spite

of

this

unhappy

choice

of

title

and

of

a

tendency

to

use

long-established

technical

terms

with

new

and

unfamiliar

meanings,

the

book

possesses

much

value

for

the

advanced

student

because

of

its

unique

approach.

Although

this

approach

has

been

derived

from

that

of

Durkheim,

Radcliffe-Brown,

and

their

disciples,

it

dif-

fers

fundamentally

from

the

work

of

these

pioneers.

Where

they

focused

their

atten-

tion

upon

society,

the

present

writers

focus

theirs

upon

the

individual,

or,

more

exactly,

upon

the

interaction

of

individuals.

About

this

focal

point

of

personal

interaction

they

attempt

to

orient

a

wide

range

of

data:

physiological,

psychological,

environmental,

including

geographic,

and

cultural.

In

cer-

tain

cases

this

new

orientation

reveals

sig-

nificant

relationships

which have

hitherto

been

overlooked,

and

suggests

new

lines

of

investigation.

In

others

it

seems

that

the

material

can

be

brought

into

agreement

with

the

basic

conceptual

scheme

only

by

a

tour

de

force,

with

the

elimination

of

functionally

important

elements.

Thus,

few

psychiatrists

will

agree

with

the

inter-

pretation

of

psychotic

states

entirely

in

terms

of

types

of

personal

interaction

(pp.

52-56),

while

most

anthropologists

will

feel

that

the

attempt

to

interpret

religious

phenomena

entirely

in

terms

of

the

inter-

actions

of

a

priest

and

the

laity

is

on

a

par

with

attempting

to

describe

a

trip

through

Mammoth

Cave

in

terms

of

the

interaction

of

the

visitor

and

his

guide.

To

the

reviewer,

the

most

serious

weak-

ness

of

the

approach

used

in

this

book

ap-

pears

to

be

the

almost

complete

lack of

differentiation

between

those

interactions

which

take

place

in

genuinely

interpersonal

terms

and

represent

a

result

of

individual

adjustment,

and

those

interactions

which

are

based

on

the

relative

positions

of

indi-

viduals

in

an

established

social

structure.

Apparently

the

authors

regard

interaction

patterns

as

individually

established

abso-

lutes.

&dquo;Each

individual

has

an

habitual

pattern

of

interaction

by

which

his

person-

ality

is

distinguished&dquo;

(p.

39).

We

know

that

even

the

most

aggressive

and

most

talkative

individual

is

usually

meek

and

silent

in

his

interaction

with

a

judge,

and

similar

adjustments

occur

in

most

cases

where

the

participants

in

interaction

situa-

tions

occupy

different

social

statuses.

It

is

as

impossible

to

understand

the

behavior

of

individuals

while

ignoring

their

positions

in

society

as

it is

to

understand

this

behavior

on

the

basis

of

position

alone

while

ignoring

the

personalities

involved.

In

spite

of

these

strictures,

the

present

book

constitutes

a

valuable

addition

to

the

literature

on

social

theory,

and

its

basic

postulates

deserve

further

testing.

RALPH

LINTON

Columbia

University

DODD,

STUART

CARTER.

Dimensions

of

So-

ciety.

Pp.

ix,

944.

New

York:

The

Macmillan

Co.,

1942.

$12.00.

In

his

preface,

Professor

Dodd

acknowl-

edges

the

tutorship

of

G.

A.

Lundberg,

whose

Foundations

of

Sociology

was

re-

viewed

in

THE

ANNALS,

May

1940.

Dodd’s

companion

volume

is

a

compilation

of

data

presented

in

pictures,

tables,

and

diagrams,

which

the

author

subsumes

under

a

system

of

notation

called

the

S-theory.

His

pur-

pose

is

to

substitute

a

set

of

symbols

for

the

loose

verbal

descriptions

often

used

in

social

studies.

In

this

way,

he

believes,

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