sign in sign up
<<
Home , Charles Wagley, Cora Du Bois, Ralph Linton

Swarthmore College Works

History Faculty Works

12-1-1973

Review Of "Chicago Sociology, 1920-1932" By R. E.L. Faris

Robert C. Bannister

Follow this and additional works at: https://works.swarthmore.edu/fac-history

Part of the History Commons Let us know how access to these works benefits ouy

Recommended Citation Robert C. Bannister. (1973). "Review Of "Chicago Sociology, 1920-1932" By R. E.L. Faris". Isis. Volume 64, Issue 224. 570-571. DOI: 10.1086/351211 https://works.swarthmore.edu/fac-history/196

This work is brought to you for free by Swarthmore College Libraries' Works. It has been accepted for inclusion in History Faculty Works by an authorized administrator of Works. For more information, please contact [email protected]. Review Author(s): Robert C. Bannister Review by: Robert C. Bannister Source: Isis, Vol. 64, No. 4 (Dec., 1973), pp. 570-571 Published by: The Press on behalf of The History of Science Society Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/229679 Accessed: 11-06-2015 16:03 UTC

Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at http://www.jstor.org/page/ info/about/policies/terms.jsp

JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected].

The University of Chicago Press and The History of Science Society are collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to Isis. http://www.jstor.org

This content downloaded from 130.58.65.13 on Thu, 11 Jun 2015 16:03:40 UTC All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 570 BOOK REVIEWS-ISIS, 64 * 4 * 224 (1973) without an overall knowledge of the space mated spacecraft was publicized in flights to program, as it was the Soviet practice to keep Mars and Venus and the landing of an eight- the Germans working on isolated projects. wheeled moon rover, Lunakhod-1, in 1970. Correctly, Daniloff sees the contribution of Aware of U.S. progress, in 1968 the Russians German scientists as "mostly complemen- ceased their propaganda statements about tary." reaching the moon first. Although the Germans possessed superior Daniloff views cooperation as essentially technology, Russian theory was equally confined to talks between Kennedy and advanced. By 1947 Stalin and his advisors Khrushchev and their respective representa- were convinced that the development of an tives because of outstanding political and ICBM was possible and could deliver an military disarmament problems. Exchange of atomic warhead, contrary to Vannevar information from agreements on weather Bush's statement on the impracticality of satellites, magnetic field data, and space ICBM development. Daniloff does not see medicine has lagged badly. After the U.S. the Russian decision as anything more than a lunar landing, cooperation on the Skylab response to U.S. capability and a preoccupa- project opens possibilities for joint efforts in tion with defense. Space exploration, satel- the late 1970s in orbital laboratories. lites, and their attendant propaganda value In concluding, Daniloff asserts that the were not seriously discussed. Soviets did participate in the space race, During the final months of the Stalin era especially when Khrushchev was in power, in (1952-1953) the Soviet government began to spite of the fact that the Kremlin never finalize its rocket development plans. Pre- officially made the challenge. The evidence parations for the International Geophysical here is simply that the Russians laid claim to Year led to a decision in 1955 to launch a many "firsts" in the early years of the space satellite, which was forewarned in Soviet age. magazines but generally overlooked by The Kremlin and the Cosmos supplies a Western observers. Pravda spoke of the great deal of data to enable the reader to "American lag" in January 1957. Khrushchev assess the Soviet space program; but as the was not fully aware of the propaganda im- author freely admits, much information re- pact of Sputnik until several weeks after the mains secret, and conclusions drawn are open launch, but his increasing boastfulness to revision in the light of new evidence. seemed like a challenge to the U.S. The space JOHN STUART BELTZ race to the moon, if it ever existed, was never Research Institute officially declared by the Kremlin. "Both Universityof Alabama Kennedy and Khrushchev," Daniloff con- Huntsville, Alabama 35807 cluded, "tried to harness the superpower rivalry between the and the Soviet Union for the purpose of stimulating Robert E. L. Faris. Chicago Sociology, 1920- their own domestic programs-in the Ameri- 1932. xi + 163 pp., 8 illus., 2 apps., name and can case, space exploration; in the Soviet, subject indices. San Francisco: Chandler economic development. Neither thought it Publishing Company; Scranton, Pa.: Intext/ worthwhile directly to respond to the other's Chandler, 1967. $8. challenge." Daniloff holds that Krushchev, although A brief, clearly organized overview, this cautious about sending a man to the moon, study traces the development of sociology favored a manned expedition, probably by at the University of Chicago during its first earth orbital rendezvous technique, and three decades. Although gaining prominence pressed space scientists toward this goal. with the arrival of Robert Park in 1915, the There were skeptics among the scientists and Chicago School owed much to a fortuitous within high policy councils; Daniloff, al- combination of circumstance and zeal in its though unable to identify them by name, early days: the newness of the university; a presents evidence for their existence. Up to tailor-made social laboratory in Chicago; Krushchev's ouster in 1964 the Soviets were the organizing genius of Albion Small, seriously studying how to achieve a manned chairman of the department from 1892 to landing. After the Premier's removal, manned 1923; and the methodological work of W. I. flight receded into the background and auto- Thomas. The resulting harvest was abundant:

This content downloaded from 130.58.65.13 on Thu, 11 Jun 2015 16:03:40 UTC All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions BOOK REVIEWS-ISIS, 64 * 4 * 224 (1973) 571 in urban ecology, in social psychology volume on , co-authored by (Chicago practiced "symbolic interaction- Adelin Linton and the general editor of the ism," Robert B. L. Faris writes, before the series, , it indicates a format label was known), and in widely ranging for the series as a whole: a text of just under studies of the family, race, immigration, and two hundred pages, roughly divided into an social change. Together these investigations eighty-page essay on the subject and his overturned a "do-gooder" tradition that, in work, followed by selections from the sub- Faris' view, blighted earlier effort. Freeing ject's publications, and concluding with a sociology from moorings in physiology and more or less complete bibliography depend- biology, they also fostered more enlightened ing on whether a complete bibliography is social policy. readily available elsewhere. Both published In preparing this informal history, Faris books self-consciously aim at a general draws on his own memories as an under- audience of presumably undergraduate-level graduate and graduate at Chicago (1924- competence in , and all of the 1931), on the reminiscences of former authors including those announced for pro- associates, and on past conversations with jected volumes are either personal acquain- his father, the late Ellsworth Faris, who tances of their subjects (usually former headed the department from Small's retire- associates) or they are slightly younger ment until 1939. In supplement, he provides scholars whose expertise was the subject's portraits and brief sketches of leading mem- major area of interest. All have established bers of the department and complete lists of some professional identity as . doctoral and masters theses from 1893 to These general observations point to the 1935. Intending a straightforward, "objec- peculiar constraints on the value of Murphy's tive" account, he attempts no refutation of book. In the case of the Linton study there recent criticism of the Chicago School (e.g., had previously existed no biographical or in Milton Gordon's Social Class in American autobiographical studies, no collection of Sociology or Maurice Stein's The Eclipse of Linton's papers, and no complete biblio- Community). Nor does he dwell on the clash graphy. The remarks of Linton's widow, of personalities or on departmental politics, however uneven, are therefore invaluable. persuaded that such have little place in a But in the case of Lowie, there already existed history of social science. Although specialists a published autobiography, ' may regret these decisions, and the absence of selection of Lowie's papers (although more raw material for a sociology of Murphy duplicated only one of her selec- Chicago sociology, this fairminded compre- tions), and Alan Dundes' complete biblio- hensive account, with its lucid summaries of graphy. Murphy is himself an , the chief works of the Chicago sociologists, not a biographer or historian, and he admits provides a balanced general introduction to to having drawn most of his information an important chapter in the history of social from Lowie's own account, even though a science. wealth of information is to be found in the ROBERT C. BANNISTER Lowie papers in the Bancroft Library. Department of History The account, however, is sympathetic, con- Swarthmore College trasting markedly with the hypercritical Swarthmore, 19081 chapter on Lowie in ' The Rise of Anthropological Theory (1968). Murphy's book is not a biography as much as a short and much-needed protest against a distorted public record. The intended audi- Robert F. Murphy. Robert H. Lowie. (Leaders ence is by implication quite definitely of Modern Anthropology Series.) ix + 179 anthropological, indicated in the sub- pp., bibl. New York: division of the biographical "reminiscence" Press, 1972. $7.50. into two sections: "Lowie the Ethnographer" and "Lowie the Social Theorist." Emphasis is Robert F. Murphy's Robert H. Lowie is placed on the general anthropological climate the second book to be published in Columbia within which Lowie was trained and began University Press' Leaders of Modern An- his fieldwork among the American Indians. thropology Series. Together with the first In context Murphy usefully relates Lowie's

This content downloaded from 130.58.65.13 on Thu, 11 Jun 2015 16:03:40 UTC All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions