Contemporary Sociology A JOURNAL OF REVIEWS

January 2011 • Volume 40 • Number 1 American Sociological Association

CS_v40_Jan2011_V2.indd 1 11/12/2010 11:04:48 AM Contemporary Sociology A JOURNAL OF REVIEWS January 2011 – Volume 40 – Number 1

EDITOR Managing EDITOR ASSISTANT EDITORs Alan Sica Anne Sica Kathryn Densberger Amanda Maull

Pennsylvania State University

EDITORial board Jimi Adesina Eric Fassin Ann Morning Rhodes University École Normale Supérieure New York University South Africa France Andrew Noymer Paul Amato Eva Fodor University of California, Central European University Pennsylvania State Irvine University Hungary Robert Antonio Joe Gerteis Jennifer Pierce University of Kansas University of Minnesota University of Minnesota Karen Barkey Janice Irvine Harland Prechel Columbia University University of Massachusetts, Texas A&M University Amherst Sharon Bird Wendy Simonds Iowa State University Devorah Kalekin-Fishman Georgia State University University of Haifa Victoria Bonnell Israel Neil Smelser University of California, Caglar Keyder University of California, Berkeley Berkeley Boğaziçi Üniversitesi Rose Brewer Turkey Nico Stehr University of Minnesota Nazli Kibria Zeppelin University Craig Calhoun Boston University Germany New York University Chyong-fang Ko Mindy Stombler Bruce Carruthers Academia Sinica Georgia State University Northwestern University Taiwan Alenka Svab Donatella Della Porta Judith Lorber University of Ljubljana European University Institute Brooklyn College and Slovenia Italy Graduate Center, CUNY Judith Treas Paul DiMaggio Marcello Maneri University of California, Princeton University University of Milano-Bicocca Irvine Italy Elaine Draper Stephen Turner California State University, Ruth Milkman University of South Florida Los Angeles University of California, Jeff Ulmer Los Angeles Anthony Elliott Pennsylvania State Flinders University Valentine Moghadam University Australia Purdue University John Urry Yen Le Espiritu Mignon Moore Lancaster University University of California, University of California, United Kingdom San Diego Los Angeles

CS_v40_Jan2011_V2.indd 2 11/12/2010 11:04:48 AM

CONTENTS

REVIEW ESSAYS Author Title Reviewer

Simmel Redux 1 Georg Simmel, edited Sociology: Inquiries into the Construction Lawrence A. Scaff and translated by of Social Forms, Volumes 1 and 2 Anthony J. Blasi, Anton K. Jacobs, and Mathew Kanjirathinkal Happy Families are Adaptable Families 4 Kathleen Gerson The Unfinished Revolution: How a New Maria Charles Generation is Reshaping Family, Work, and Gender in America The Geometer as Sociologist 7 John Levi Martin Social Structures Neil Gross Criminology, Racial Dehumanization and the Crime Of Genocide in Darfur 10 John Hagan and Darfur and the Crime of Genocide David A. Snow and Wenona Rymond- Yang Su Richmond REVIEWS 13 Shireen Ally From Servants to Workers: South African Jacklyn Cock Domestic Workers and the Democratic State 14 Vanessa Barker The Politics of Imprisonment: How the Jill McCorkel Democratic Process Shapes the Way America Punishes Offenders 16 Anthony S. Bryk, Organizing Schools for Improvement: James M. McPartland Penny Bender Sebring, Lessons from Chicago Elaine Allensworth, Stuart Luppescu, and John Q. Easton 17 Greg Castillo Cold War on the Home Front: The Soft Harvey Molotch Power of Midcentury Design 19 Alfio Cerami and Pieter Post-Communist Welfare Pathways: Ivan Szelenyi Vanhuysse, editors Theorizing Social Policy Transformations in Central and Eastern Europe 20 Jennifer Jihye Chun Organizing at the Margins: The Symbolic Miliann Kang Politics of Labor in South Korea and the United States Author Title Reviewer 21 Ben Crewe Prisoner Society: Power, Adaptation, and Robert C. Hauhart Social Life in an English Prison 25 Peter Demerath Producing Success: The Culture of Personal Sean Kelly Advancement in an American High School 23 Roy D’Andrade A Study of Personal and Cultural Values: Jeffrey Broadbent American, Japanese, and Vietnamese 27 Jennifer L. Dunn Judging Victims: Why We Stigmatize Helen Fein Survivors, and How They Reclaim Respect 28 Stephen Farrall, Social Order and the Fear of Crime in Gregory Adams Jonathan Jackson, and Contemporary Times Emily Gray 30 David Freedman, edited Statistical Models and Causal Inference: Jacob Felson by David Collier, A Dialogue with the Social Sciences Jasjeet Sekhon, and Philip Stark 31 Diego Gambetta Codes of the Underworld: How Criminals Jana Arsovska Communicate 33 Peggy C. Giordano Legacies of Crime: A Follow-Up of the Sonja E. Siennick Children of Highly Delinquent Girls and Boys 34 Peter Gosselin High Wire: The Precarious Financial Lives Vesna Leskošek of American Families 36 Deborah B. Gould Moving Politics: Emotion and ACT UP’s Martha Copp Fight Against AIDS 38 Carol Graham Happiness Around the World: The Paradox Laura Tach of Happy Peasants and Miserable Millionaires 39 Mary L. Gray Out in the Country: Youth, Media, and Wayne H. Brekhus Queer Visibility in Rural America 41 Simon Halliday and Conducting Law and Society Research: Sharyn Roach Anleu Patrick Schmidt Reflections on Methods and Practices 43 Lingxin Hao Color Lines, Country Lines: Race, Juyeon Son Immigration, and Wealth Stratification in America 44 Laura A. Henry Red to Green: Environmental Activism Oleg Yanitsky in Post-Soviet Russia 46 Steffen Hertog Princes, Brokers, and Bureaucrats: Oil and Kiren Aziz Chaudry the State in Saudi Arabia 47 Mikael Holmqvist The Disabling State of an Active Society Paul de Beer 48 Charles E. Hurst and An Amish Paradox: Diversity and Change Danny L. Jorgenson David L. McConnell in the World’s Largest Amish Community 50 David Inglis and Debra The Globalization of Food Alessandro Bonnano Gimlin, editors 51 José Itzigsohn Encountering American Faultlines: Race, Class, Lucía M. Suárez and the Dominican Experience in Providence Author Title Reviewer 53 Tomás R. Jiménez Replenished Ethnicity: Mexican Americans, Ernesto Castañeda Immigration, and Identity 55 Tom Juravich At the Altar of the Bottom Line: The Mark Thomas Degradation of Work in the 21st Century 57 Gavin Kendall, Ian The Sociology of Cosmopolitanism: Peter Kivisto Woodward, and Zlatko Globalization, Identity, Culture and Skrbis Government 58 Richard Kernaghan Coca’s Gone: Of Might and Right in the Sara Schatz Huallaga Post-Boom 59 Hanan Kholoussy For Better, For Worse: The Marriage Crisis Kathryn Yount That Made Modern Egypt 61 Anthony J. Lemelle, Jr. Black Masculinity and Sexual Politics Alford A. Young, Jr. 62 Ritty A. Lukose Liberalization’s Children: Gender, Youth, and Raka Ray Consumer Citizenship in Globalizing India 63 Philip McMichael, Contesting Development: Critical Struggles Gianni Piazza editor for Social Change 65 Ryan Moore Sells Like Teen Spirit: Music, Youth Culture, Mimi Schippers and Social Crisis 66 Christine Musselin, The Market for Academics Gaye Tuchman translated by Amy Jacobs 68 Constance A. Disease Prevention as Social Change: The Terry Boychuk Nathanson State, Society, and Public Health in the United States, France, Great Britain, and Canada 70 Andreas J. Obermaier The End of Territoriality?: The Impact of Joseph A. Conti ECJ Rulings on British, German and French Social Policy 71 Ruth Penfold-Mounce, Celebrity Culture and Crime: The Joy of Chris Rojek editor Transgression 72 Janet Poppendieck Free for All: Fixing School Food in America Shelley L. Koch 73 William Rehg Cogent Science in Context: The Science Maeve Cooke Wars, Argumentation Theory, and Habermas 75 Martin Riesebrodt, The Promise of Salvation: A Theory of Stephen J. Hunt translated by Steven Religion Rendall 76 Beth Roy 41 Shots . . . and Counting: What Amadou Anna-Maria Marshall Diallo’s Story Teaches Us about Policing, Race, and Justice 78 Marilyn Rueschemeyer Women in Power in Post-Communist Pamela Paxton and Sharon L. Wolchik, Parliaments editors 79 Wanda Rushing Memphis and the Paradox of Place: Richard Lloyd Globalization in the American South 80 Yitzhak Samuel Organizational Pathology: Life and Death of Matt Vidal Organizations Author Title Reviewer 82 Peter Schrag Not Fit for Our Society: Immigration and Richard Alba Nativism in America 83 Josh Sides Erotic City: Sexual Revolutions and the Barry D. Adam Making of Modern San Francisco 85 Pete Simi and Robert American Swastika: Inside the White Power Kathleen Blee Futrell Movement’s Hidden Spaces of Hate 86 Neil J. Smelser Reflections on the University of California: Robin Wagner-Pacifici From the Free Speech Movement to the Global University 88 Rickie Solinger, Interrupted Life: Experiences of Incarcerated Leona Lee Paula C. Johnson, Women in the United States Martha L. Raimon, Tina Reynolds, and Ruby C. Tapia, editors 89 Felicia Wu Song Virtual Communities: Bowling Alone, Mark A. Gammon Online Together 90 Vicki Squire The Exclusionary Politics of Asylum Galya Benarieh Ruffer 92 Jordan Stanger-Ross Staying Italian: Urban Change and Ethnic William Michelson Life in Postwar Toronto and Philadelphia 94 Noël Sturgeon Environmentalism in Popular Culture: James P. Sterba Gender, Race, Sexuality and the Politics of the Natural 95 Anthony Synnott Re-Thinking Men: Heroes, Villains and Victims Roman Kuhar 97 Kenneth H. Tucker, Jr. Workers of the World, Enjoy!: Aesthetic Claudio E. Benzecry Politics from Revolutionary Syndicalism to the Global Justice Movement 98 Sylvia Walby Globalization and Inequalities: Complexity Christopher Chase- and Contested Modernities Dunn 100 Jason Adam At Home on the Street: People, Poverty and Russell K. Schutt Wasserman and Jeffrey a Hidden Culture of Homelessness Michael Clair 101 Max Weber, edited by Arbeiterfrage und Arbeiterbewegung, Christopher Adair- Rita Aldenhoff- Vorlesungen 1895–1898 Toteff Hübinger with Silke Fehlemann 103 Janine R. Wedel Shadow Elite: How the World’s New Power Thomas Birtchnell Brokers Undermine Democracy, Government, and the Free Market BRIEFLY NOTED 105 Karen Brodkin Power Politics: Environmental Activism in South Los Angeles 105 Cathleen Burnett Wrongful Death Sentences: Rethinking Justice in Capital Cases 106 Rosalind S. Chou and Myth of the Model Minority: Asian Americans Facing Racism Joe R. Feagin Author Title 106 Juan Cole Engaging the Muslim World 107 Dan G. Cox, John Terrorism, Instability, and Democracy in Asia and Africa Falconer, and Brian Stackhouse 107 Marcelo Diversi and Betweener Talk: Decolonizing Knowledge Production, Pedagogy, Claudio Moreira & Praxis 108 Ben Fincham, Mark Mobile Methodologies McGuinness, and Lesley Murray, editors 108 Richard Frechette Haiti: The God of Tough Places, the Lord of Burnt Men 108 Jacqui Gabb Researching Intimacy in Families 109 Clark Glymour Galileo in Pittsburgh 109 Stephen Gundle Glamour: A History 110 Amanda Walker Objectifying Measures: The Dominance of High-Stakes Testing and the Johnson Politics of Schooling 111 Thomas Joiner Myths about Suicide 111 J. David Knottnerus Bureaucratic Culture and Escalating World Problems: Advancing the and Bernard Phillips Sociological Imagination 112 Alexander Kozintsev The Mirror of Laughter 112 Andrew Lakoff Disaster and the Politics of Intervention 113 Arthur Levine and Unequal Fortunes: Snapshots from the South Bronx Laura Scheiber 113 Martha C. Nussbaum From Disgust to Humanity: Sexual Orientation & Constitutional Law 114 Benjamin I. Page and Class War?: What Americans Really Think about Economic Inequality Lawrence R. Jacobs 114 Eve Shapiro Gender Circuits: Bodies and Identities in a Technological Age

116 Erratum

117 Publications Received

126 Index of Authors by Category Contemporary Sociology: A Journal of Reviews (ISSN 0094-3061) is published bimonthly in January, March, May, July, September, and November by SAGE Publications, 2455 Teller Road, Thousand Oaks, CA 91320, on behalf of the American Sociological Association, 1430 K Street NW, Suite 600, Washington, DC 20005. POSTMASTER: Send address changes to Contemporary Sociology c/o SAGE Publications, Inc., 2455 Teller Road, Thousand Oaks, CA 91320.

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Printed on acid-free paper Ó American Sociological Association 2011 DOI: 10.1177/0094306110391762 http://cs.sagepub.com REVIEW ESSAYS

Simmel Redux

LAWRENCE A. SCAFF Wayne State University [email protected]

It has taken 101 years, but finally we have a complete English translation of Georg Sim- Sociology: Inquiries into the Construction of mel’s masterpiece, the collection of essays Social Forms, Volumes 1 and 2,byGeorg known simply as Sociology. For classical soci- Simmel; translated and edited by ology this is the last of the major unfinished Anthony J. Blasi, Anton K. Jacobs, and translation projects. It is an important pub- Mathew Kanjirathinkal; with an lishing event, completing the translation introduction by Horst J. Helle. Boston, into English of the major works of Dur- MA: Brill, 2009. 692pp. $318.00 cloth. kheim, Weber and Simmel. ISBN: 9789004173217. Published in 1908 in Leipzig by Dunker & Humblot as Soziologie: Untersuchungen u¨ber die Formen der Vergesellschaftung, the original sociological canon: ‘‘Superiority and Subor- text was never revised by Simmel. However, dination as Subject-Matter for Sociology,’’ after his death in 1918 it went through six ‘‘The Sociology of Conflict,’’ ‘‘The Sociology editions with minor variations, all carefully of Secrecy and the Secret Society,’’ and ‘‘How cataloged in the authoritative version now is Society Possible?’’ In France, Rene´ Worms published as Volume 11 in the Georg Simmel promoted Simmel’s work, while E´ mile Dur- Gesamtausgabe (Suhrkamp, 1992). The pres- kheim published part of ‘‘The Persistence ent translation is based appropriately on of Social Groups’’ (Comment les formes Simmel’s original 1908 text. sociales se mainteinnent) in L’Anne´e Sociolo- The history of Sociology in its German orig- gique, partly in a failed effort to draw Simmel inal and in English translation is a complicat- into the orbit of Durkheimian sociology. ed affair. Simmel acknowledged in a letter to Simmel struggled with the text, first trying Ce´lestin Bougle´ (March 2, 1908) that the to articulate a clear definition of the field and composition of the text had taken fifteen its epistemological and methodological foun- years, a reference to its starting point in the dation, and then making an effort to give the essay ‘‘The Problem of Sociology’’ of 1894. partial sociologies the kind of thematic coher- Simmel placed an extensive revision and ence and grounding he had achieved earlier expansion of that early essay, a product of with The Philosophy of Money (1900). He was his first Berlin lectures on the subject never completely satisfied with the results. (attended by Bougle´), at the beginning of Nor was his relationship to sociology with- Sociology. The text that followed was a compi- out ambivalence. At times he saw himself lation and revision of more than twenty having a career as a sociologist, already in essays published between 1894 and 1908, 1893 negotiating with Northwestern Univer- the vast majority after 1905. Many of these sity over such an appointment. But six years essays appeared in English or French and later he was complaining to Bougle´ about his Italian translations. In the United States, reputation outside Germany as a sociologist, Albion Small published nine of Simmel’s insisting ‘‘I am a philosopher, see my life- essays or selections from his work in the work in philosophy and engage in sociology American Journal of Sociology between 1896 only as a secondary specialization’’ (Decem- and 1910, translating eight himself. Some of ber 13, 1899; GSG 22: 342). The ‘‘great pro- these selections became part of the early ject’’ kept starting and stopping. Finally in

1 Contemporary Sociology 40, 1 2 Review Essays

1905 his enthusiasm for the sociological pro- Six as Conflict and the Web of Group Affiliations ject returned, and over the next four years (Free Press, 1955). Selections from these and Simmel wrote and revised hundreds of other chapters also appeared in Wolff’s pages of text, publishing seventeen essays Georg Simmel, 1858–1918: A Collection of separately and incorporating all of them in Essays (Ohio State, 1959), and Donald Lev- the final version of Sociology. It is the concen- ine’s widely-used reader, Georg Simmel on trated engagement of these essays on partic- Individuality and Social Forms (Chicago, ular topics written in rapid-fire succession 1971). Notwithstanding the success of these that permeate the spirit of the whole, even texts in introducing postwar students to though the initial foundations come from Simmel’s contributions, the scattered nature earlier work. The new material forced Sim- and sequencing of the translations rendered mel to rethink the foundations too, leading the reconstruction of his arguments difficult, to what Otthein Rammstedt has called his and often did little to counter the impression ‘‘Kantian turn’’: the overcoming of both pos- of Simmel as an unsystematic, if brilliant itivism and psychologism through a concep- master of the topical essay. Wolff’s The Soci- tion of social forms not as external frames for ology of Georg Simmel is problematic, for action, but as conditional possibilities of example, by placing at the beginning a com- social action realized through interactions plete translation of one of his last texts, the with the knowing subject. The method of so-called ‘‘minor’’ sociology, Grundfragen composition also helps explain the unusual der Soziologie (1917), then following with juxtaposition of subject-matter chapters and fragments from the ‘‘major’’ Sociology of the excursus—ten of the former, and thirteen 1908 that exclude the first chapter, ‘‘The Prob- of the latter. Simmel justified the mode of lem of Sociology,’’ which Simmel thought presentation by noting that in working essential to understanding his vision of the through the particulars the reader would field. Overcoming such deficiencies and perceive the unity and coherence of the making sense of the logic and biography of whole, while warning in the ‘‘Foreword’’ the work has long been exceptionally diffi- that his singular mode of questioning, the cult for those without access to the original. Fragestellung or problem of the first chapter, From that standpoint alone a translation of would have to be grasped continuously in the complete text offers the promise of recov- Sociology ‘‘because otherwise these pages ering Simmel’s intentions and the problem- could appear to be an accumulation of inco- atics of his work. herent facts and reflections’’ (p. ix). The What I have called the third wave of inter- warning was at least perspicacious: the con- est in Simmel was a legacy of socio-cultural sequences of ignoring it have haunted the changes stemming from the 1960s. It swept work ever since, leading scholars familiar through sociology, but also beyond the disci- with Simmel, such as Talcott Parsons, to set pline to domains Simmel would have it to one side. thought of as ‘‘philosophical sociology’’ or Simmel’s work entered American sociolo- simply ‘‘philosophical.’’ This last movement gy in three waves: before World War I thanks of thought essentially ignored the textual largely to the work of Albion Small and Rob- problems of Sociology, instead focusing ert Park; immediately after World War II attention on Simmel either as an astute ‘‘diag- through the efforts of Kurt Wolff, Lewis nostician’’ of the times, a path-breaking mod- Coser, and Donald Levine; and then starting ernist, a phenomenologist of modern life, or in the late 1970s through the translations of a postmodern enthusiast avant la lettre for Guy Oakes, David Frisby, Tom Bottomore, whom characterizations like ‘‘fragmentary’’ Horst Helle, Deena and Michael Weinstein, and ‘‘ambivalent’’ were badges of honor. and others. For the influential second wave The advantage of illuminating these hitherto the major accessible translations of parts of unexamined regions of Simmel’s thought, the text were Kurt Wolff’s selections from such as his writings on women and sexuality Chapters Two, Three and Five (plus three or his reflections on Schopenhauer and excursus) in The Sociology of Georg Simmel Nietzsche, were a broadened appeal and an (Free Press, 1950), and Wolff’s and Reinhard opening onto a range of problems in contem- Bendix’s translation of Chapters Four and porary culture and cultural analysis. In these

Contemporary Sociology 40, 1 Review Essays 3 settings Simmel now seemed to be in touch sometimes leave the reader guessing at Sim- with the Zeitgeist and to speak the language mel’s meaning. of the times. Yet his explicit contribution to Have they succeeded in retrieving Sim- sociology continued to remain at a distance, mel’s own voice and making his work so to speak, an often poorly remembered accessible in new ways? There are obvious collection of comments on various ‘‘social advantages to having the ten chapters of Soci- forms’’—interesting perhaps, but hardly ology in their intended format, with the essential. methodological preliminaries of ‘‘The Prob- The translators of Sociology want to correct lem of Sociology’’ followed by the substan- this imbalance in the reception of Simmel’s tive problematics. The rationale for the work. Their ambitious aim is a text written various excursus then becomes clearer as ‘‘in twenty-first century standard English’’ commentary on specific problems that that will ‘‘make Simmel accessible in ways appear at the boundary of the kind of social he has not been heretofore’’ (p. xiii). To reach interaction under discussion. Returning to this goal they might have based their text on the overarching design helps us see that to previous translations, as did Guenther Roth interpret Simmel’s contribution as only and Claus Wittich in editing and translating a ‘‘formal sociology’’ is to elide his emphasis Weber’s Economy and Society. Instead, they on the ways in which social relations are have proceeded on their own; their transla- constituted through interaction. Much of tion of the text is entirely new. Why? One Simmel’s text is really about social processes, reason is that there are indeed special prob- their generation, development, distinctive lems in translating Simmel that require a con- characteristics, and consequences for indi- sistent approach. It is not only a matter of viduals and group life. The text unfolds by finding a settled vocabulary for major con- way of abstract generalization alternating cepts. There is the more formidable chal- with concrete illustrations which then pro- lenge of converting Simmel’s idiosyncratic voke further generalization. Moreover, like syntax and grammar into readable prose. the translation of The Philosophy of Money Simmel was aware of the difficulties of his by Tom Bottomore and David Frisby, the stylistic habits, commenting on them to edi- text now possesses a stylistic unity and tors, such as Martin Buber as he sought to coherent rhythm that can make it a pleasure bring clarity to Simmel’s phrasing in Die to read. The language is gender-inclusive, as Religion (1906). Simmel often stretched con- Simmel often intended it to be, and more ventions in the German language governing archaic locutions are rendered in a modern noun and pronoun references, adjective idiom. This is no small accomplishment. It endings, declension of articles, case and may well be, as Horst Helle mentions in gender—as if searching for a new linguistic his introduction to the translation, that form to express his most complex thoughts. native speakers will end up preferring Thus, the other important reason for trans- Simmel’s Soziologie in English translation. lating de novo is to try to achieve something As for the conceptual building blocks, the not done before: to capture that new mode translators have chosen to handle the noun of expression, to present a Simmel whose Vergesellschaftung, an essential and ubiqui- language has come of age in the present tous relational concept for Simmel and and for the future. Weber, in a somewhat unconventional way. In view of such purposes and complexities, Small used the misleading term ‘‘socializa- the translators of Sociology have proposed tion,’’ while Wolff preferred the more what might be called a ‘‘semantic’’ transla- precise, but less intelligible ‘‘sociation.’’ In tion that is accurate, conceptually consistent, Economy and Society, Roth and Wittich favor true to the original metaphors, yet rendered ‘‘association’’ or ‘‘associative relationship.’’ into readable contemporary English. They In the new Sociology, this term for the forma- have with good reason avoided the freer tion of social relationships is sometimes paraphrasing of previous translations, favor- ‘‘association’’ and in other contexts ‘‘social ing their own ‘‘project of giving Simmel him- interaction’’ or ‘‘creating society,’’ the differ- self a voice’’ (p. xvi). But they have also ent usages governed by whether Simmel is avoided the stilted literalisms that would referring to the creation or construction of

Contemporary Sociology 40, 1 4 Review Essays a social form (as in the subtitle), or to the pro- consistently translating these foundational cess of social interaction. While it is true that concepts as ‘‘interaction’’ and ‘‘association,’’ Simmel uses Vergesellschaftung in both while letting the interpretive emphasis senses, the elasticity in the English-language emerge in the mind of the reader. concept can have mixed results. For example, Considering the strengths of the new trans- when we read in the chapter on conflict that lation, it is unfortunate that the publisher has ‘‘every pattern of interaction among people chosen to divide the text into two volumes is an association’’ (p. 227), the leap in clarity with a price tag well beyond the means of over Small’s ‘‘every reaction among men is most scholars. As of this writing the best a socialization’’ is dramatic and obvious. But one can do on Amazon.com is a used copy when we turn to Simmel’s characterization for $260. It should go without saying that of sociology and read ‘‘it would inquire only the labors of translation will go unnoticed into these interworkings [Wechselwirkun- and unappreciated without access to the gen], these kinds and forms of social interac- results. Having reunified the text and mod- tion [Vergesellschaftung]’’ (p. 23), the gain is ernized the translation, what we now need less convincing. Wolff’s version—‘‘it must is an affordable one-volume paperback edi- exclusively investigate these interactions, tion of Simmel’s Sociology, equivalent to these kinds and forms of sociation’’—has that marketed by Suhrkamp for a mere 22 the advantage of maintaining the precision Euros. For the English-language audience of Simmel’s terminology and the logical anything less will leave Simmel’s sociologi- relationship between ‘‘interaction’’ and cal masterpiece where it has been for gener- ‘‘association.’’ There is, of course, no perfect ations: known not as a timely treatise, solution to such terminological and concep- a coherent whole and first-hand; but as a dat- tual problems. Though it is a minor quibble, ed commentary, an assemblage of fragments there is nevertheless something to be said for and by report.

Happy Families are Adaptable Families

MARIA CHARLES University of California, Santa Barbara [email protected]

Leo Tolstoy famously wrote that ‘‘every unhappy family is unhappy in its own The Unfinished Revolution: How a New way.’’ The unhappy families described by Generation is Reshaping Family, Work, and Kathleen Gerson’s young informants do Gender in America,byKathleen Gerson. seem to share at least one quality, though: New York, NY: Oxford University their parental heads were often unable or Press, 2010. 297pp. $24.95 cloth. ISBN: unwilling to adapt in the face of change. 9780195371673. While the happy families were certainly not all ‘‘alike,’’ they did tend to be more adapt- able, modifying conventional gender roles when they became untenable, and develop- to look back on the full trajectory of their ing flexible patterns of breadwinning and childhood as well as forward to their own caretaking when confronted with unexpected future’’ (p. 232). Although all respondents events and circumstances such as divorce, then resided in the New York metropolitan unemployment, or parental malaise. area, they grew up in diverse neighborhood The Unfinished Revolution is based on types spanning all regions of the United detailed life-history interviews with 120 States. The sample’s racial, ethnic, and class young men and women aged eighteen to composition is reasonably representative thirty-two, chosen to be ‘‘young enough to of the country as a whole. Gerson’s in- have change close at hand, yet old enough depth interviews provide a window into

Contemporary Sociology 40, 1 Review Essays 5 how tumultuous social and demographic working-class men, many of whom had changes have affected young Americans’ previously been able to count on union con- lives, the meanings they attribute to these tracts and family wages. Taken together, changes, and the coping strategies that they these changes have promoted a softening of and their parents have adopted over the gender boundaries in divisions of domestic past two or three decades. Gerson’s prose and market labor. is lucid and engaging, and her chapters are But while recent decades have witnessed tightly structured, with observations and a proliferation of dual-earner families and theoretical arguments supported by richly somewhat more male involvement in house- contextualized interview excerpts. hold labor, the gender revolution is ‘‘unfin- This is the third in a series of books auth- ished’’ because these transformations have ored by Kathleen Gerson on how men and coincided with a fundamental stability in women make decisions about balancing key social institutions, particularly with work and family obligations in a shifting respect to the organization of paid jobs and late-twentieth century American landscape. caregiving. Work hours remain long and Hard Choices (1985) focused on women’s inflexible, and employment demands often lives, No Man’s Land (1993) on men’s lives, peak during the most intensive childrearing and The Unfinished Revolution on how these years. Public support for childcare remains lives intersect in families, as reported by minimal in the United States, with most serv- grown ‘‘children of the gender revolution.’’ ices provided privately by families or pur- The Unfinished Revolution is broken into chased on the market, often at prices that two main empirical sections. Part One are out of reach to ordinary workers. The describes how respondents experienced resultant structural conflict between work their upbringing. In a nutshell, their percep- and family is a major reason for the revolu- tions of family life strongly depended upon tion’s incomplete status. Gerson’s interviews whether their parents and other caretakers reveal that these structural realities lead were able to deal successfully with unex- young men and women to develop conflict- pected challenges and sometimes crises. ing coping strategies. Whereas many male Part Two focuses on respondents’ hopes respondents hope and expect that their part- and plans for the future. These chapters ners will ‘‘choose’’ domesticity during the reveal widespread aspirations for an egali- peak childrearing years, the majority of tarian family life among young Americans, female respondents emphasize economic but also widespread skepticism about pros- self-reliance, often through postponed family pects for achieving this goal given rigid formation (especially among educated and workplaces, long workweeks, and lack of middle-class women) or single parenthood socially acceptable options for child care. (more common among African American, The ‘‘revolution’’ referenced in the book’s working-class and poorer women). title encompasses an array of well-known The revolution’s full realization is impeded social and demographic changes that have by more than structural factors, however. transpired in the United States, including Ideological rigidities, in particular powerful women’s dramatically increased participa- moral depictions of the ideal worker, the tion in labor markets and higher education, ideal caregiver, and the ideal breadwinner, growing economic uncertainty of working- are at least as important. Ideological intransi- class men, rising rates of divorce and single gence is most clearly evident in the expressed parenthood, increased cohabitation, and reluctance of most male respondents to spe- delayed marriage. The revolution in employ- cialize in care and in the misgivings voiced, ment patterns is partly attributable to especially by men, about nonparental care changes in economic structure, specifically of young children. In describing American the contraction of the ‘‘blue collar’’ cultural constructions of childhood, sociolo- manufacturing labor force and the growing gists Sharon Hays (1996) and Mary Blair- demand for workers in historically female Loy (2004) describe hegemonic norms of sales, service, and clerical fields. As a result, care that mandate an extraordinary commit- we see increased wages and job opportunities ment of time, emotion, and nurturance by for women and diminished prospects for one primary caregiver, preferably the mother.

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While only a minority of Gerson’s female more generally is an important topic for respondents personally embrace norms of future research. full-time mothering, many appeared cogni- In the book’s final chapter, Gerson recom- zant of this cultural ideal and seemed to mends Scandinavian-style policy measures, expect that others would hold them account- such as universal day care, mandated paren- able to it. Norms of ‘‘intensive motherhood’’ tal leave, and more flexible work schedules, combined with workplace expectations for all of which would undoubtedly ease struc- single-minded devotion to career lend tural work-family conflicts. But with its a robust cultural scaffolding to work-family weak labor movement, neoliberal economic conflict. These competing demands and mor- culture, and popular distrust of government, al imperatives influence perceived options the contemporary United States has long and feelings of self-worth and ultimately been a tough environment in which to sell shape respondents’ decisions about how to public solutions to what are widely regarded organize work and family lives. The egalitar- as private problems. The interviews pre- ian ideals of this generation therefore become sented in The Unfinished Revolution indicate difficult to realize in practice. that this generation of Americans, like the Interestingly, the gendered work- and child- one that preceded it, looks to individual devotion schemas that are so clearly evident rather than collectivist solutions for address- in respondents’ forward-looking narratives ing work-family conflict. Coping individual- are largely absent in their retrospective judg- ly means that these young people will also ments about the quality of their own parents’ find themselves in situations that require parenting. Mothers who were employed and flexibility and a willingness to transgress fathers who were unable to bring home a fam- traditional gender boundaries. Pressures ily wage did not fare worse in their children’s for adaptability are clearly evident today estimation than did those who offered ‘‘tradi- as the country grapples with a severe tional’’ family structures. In fact, respondents economic recession and an ongoing con- seemed to judge parental divisions of labor traction of the blue-collar workforce. Tradi- according to remarkably egalitarian stand- tional divisions of labor become untenable ards, focusing less on their families’ structural as husbands and fathers who expected to forms (traditional, dual-earner, single-parent) be sole providers suddenly find themselves than on whether their parents were able to dependent upon women’s earnings to sup- provide stable and emotionally supportive plement or replace their own. Because cul- home environments. Harsh judgments were tural ideals are influenced by common reserved for mothers or fathers who commit- practices and institutional arrangements, ted transgressions such as neglect, emotional changes such as these, even if involuntary, distancing, abandonment, infidelity, or acts are likely to soften gender ideologies and of violence. Parents’ efforts to adapt to unfore- promote more flexible models of working, seen circumstances by taking up nontradition- parenting, and childhood. al arrangements were often reported upon ‘‘(F)amily life is a film, not a snapshot’’ with pride and admiration. (p. 9). Kathleen Gerson’s The Unfinished The Unfinished Revolution provides new Revolution marks a major conceptual insights into the cultural reach of ideologies advance by depicting families as pathways, of intensive motherhood and breadwinner rather than static structural forms. Families fatherhood. Even as ideological and practi- go through discrete stages and phases as cal forces push some of Gerson’s respond- members respond to expected and unex- ents toward traditional family forms in their pected events and circumstances. While own lives, there is little evidence that these labels such as ‘‘dual-earner,’’ ‘‘single- young people hold their parents accountable parent,’’ and ‘‘traditional’’ may describe to norms of intensive motherhood or work families at certain points in time, they do devotion. Results thus point to what might not adequately characterize the two-decade be termed ‘‘an intergenerational double long experience of growing up. It is high standard.’’ Whether this is unique to chil- time that we move beyond simple—often dren of the gender revolution or holds polarizing—depictions of family forms and

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‘‘family values’’ and open our minds to the Gerson, Kathleen. 1985. Hard Choices: How Women process of family life in twenty-first century Decide about Work, Career, and Motherhood. Ber- America. keley, CA: University of California Press. ———. 1993. No Man’s Land: Men’s Changing Com- mitments to Family and Work. New York, NY: Basic Books. References Hays, Sharon. 1996. The Cultural Contradictions of Blair-Loy, Mary. 2004. Competing Devotions: Career Motherhood. New Haven, CT: Yale University and Family Among Women Executives. Cam- Press. bridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

The Geometer as Sociologist

NEIL GROSS University of British Columbia [email protected]

In 1958, on the occasion of the English publication of Emile Durkheim’s Professional Social Structures,byJohn Levi Martin. Ethics and Civic Morals and the German Princeton, NJ: Princeton University publication of a new collection of essays by Press, 2009. 394pp. $39.50 cloth. ISBN: Georg Simmel, Kurt H. Wolff wrote an essay 9780691127118. comparing the two thinkers and their influence. One of their major similarities, in Wolff’s view, was that both had philoso- In the ensuing decades, as network analy- phical as well as sociological ambitions. Yet sis has taken off as a research area, Simmel in 1958—and still, by some accounts, in has become father to many more sociologists. 1976, when Donald Levine and colleagues Network theorists were slow to recognize published Part I of their seminal article, their intellectual debts, but there is growing ‘‘Simmel’s Influence on American awareness today that Simmel’s understand- Sociology’’—Simmel remained for many ing of social structure serves as the conceptu- U.S. sociologists, very much the stranger. al foundation for the entire field. ‘‘We hardly know him yet,’’ Wolff wrote. Simmel the philosopher, however, remains ‘‘[T]here are only a few of us for whom he is little known. And this fact is no less problem- among the fathers’’ (Wolff 1958:593). While atic today than it was in 1958. This is so not Simmel’s call for a sociology of interactional because Simmel’s specific philosophical forms was familiar in broad outline, and while concerns are at the forefront of anyone’s early figures in the American discipline often intellectual agenda, but because, as Wolff cited him as an influence, his research program saw clearly, a formal sociology not coupled inspired relatively few followers. And the phil- with Simmel’s richly culturalist, quasi- osophical side of Simmel—his interest in phenomenological sensibility loses its capaci- advancing a philosophy of life and culture in ty to generate real insight, since the main conjunction with his sociology—went entirely effects of interactional forms are to be found unrecognized. The latter fact was of great con- in actors’ horizons of experience, and in the cern to the phenomenological Wolff. For as he chains of action to which their structurally- saw it, formal sociology could achieve its aims mediated experiences give rise. only if conceived of as one among several Such a loss of insightful capacity is approaches to the study of the lifeworld—the ultimately the fate of John Levi Martin’s attempt, at once sociological, philosophical, ambitious and generally admirable book, and psychological, to describe and understand Social Structures. Although engaging with thenatureofexperienceasfacedbyhuman certain phenomenological ideas, like Peter beings in various kinds of circumstances. Berger and Thomas Luckmann’s theory of

Contemporary Sociology 40, 1 8 Review Essays institutionalization, only occasionally does subthemes is that friendship relations often the book provide a truly satisfying account lead to status inequality by mutating into of what experience is like from the vantage ‘‘popularity tournaments’’ in which ‘‘ego is point of particular structures. When it does, likely to choose those alters who are dispro- the results can be quite rich. Elsewhere, the portionately chosen by others’’ (p. 68). Chap- manipulation of abstractions continually ter Three then analyzes various non-market threatens to outstrip insight. structures of exchange—such as the marital There is one thing about the book Wolff exchange of women between lineages—that, surely would have appreciated: it marries according to Martin, function to ‘‘contain’’ Simmel to Durkheim. As a practitioner of for- (p. 73) these and other inequalities and mal sociology, Martin is interested in social stabilize social relations. Chapter Four moves structures understood ‘‘as regular patterns on to examine ‘‘dominance orders’’ in which of interaction’’ (p. 7). He brings a Durkhei- the relationships between actors are mian perspective to bear on this in two minor ‘‘antisymmetric’’ and ‘‘inherently unequal’’ ways and one major way. First, he attempts to (p. 104). Where some scholars argue that respond to Durkheim’s critique of Simmel for human patterns in this regard are structurally ignoring ‘‘content.’’ This he does by positing equivalent to those found in other species, that each interactional structure is under- Martin first recasts dominance among ani- girded by a set of ‘‘heuristics’’ codifying mals by emphasizing the centrality of ritual ‘‘the intersubjective rules of proceeding of submission, and second makes the case which all parties are aware,’’ such that ‘‘there that—though inequality is of course perva- is a duality between structure and culture’’ sive in human societies—dominance orders (p. 17, emphasis in original). Second, he per se are rare. In the course of doing so he remains true to Durkheim’s conception of offers a brief excursus on street gangs to sociology as a study of the distinctive prop- counter the assertion that gangs are a social erties of the social lives of human beings;he formation in which dominance orders can refuses to go down the path tread by some clearly be seen. network analysts who draw no distinction Martin summarizes the results of his inves- between networks composed of persons tigations to this point by arguing that there and those composed of other kinds of are ‘‘three pure forms of organization’’ entities. Yet there is a more significant way, when it comes to social relationships. In the as well, in which the book blends Simmel terminology of Harrison White these are and Durkheim: it has an explicitly emergent- ‘‘selection,’’ in which ‘‘organization is subjec- ist agenda, its goal to understand how cer- tively understood in terms of the qualities of tain interactional forms emerge—or fail to individuals,’’ ‘‘commitment,’’ in which there emerge—out of others. is mutuality between members of dyads, This entails examination of the relationship and ‘‘dominance.’’ Martin’s inquiries show, between a wide variety of small-scale struc- he says, that there is ‘‘a tendency for certain tures that could plausibly be the building types of relationships to move toward one of blocks for more complex ones. The inquiry these forms,’’ with the caveat that there are begins in earnest in Chapter Two, which ‘‘always possibilities for alternate structures takes up the question of whether more aggre- due to inherent ambiguities or polyvalences gated structures could have formed from in the content of relationships’’ (p. 151, simple friendship or acquaintanceship rela- emphasis in original). tions. Martin argues, against balance theorists It is one of these alternate structures— like Fritz Heider, that they could not have, ‘‘influence,’’ which, according to Martin, lies not least because their crystallization into dis- halfway between selection and dominance— tinct patterns such as the clique (an exclusive that forms the subject of Chapter Five. Here group in which all members have close ties to Martin considers a number of circumstan- one another) is both a rare occurrence and ces in which one actor or set of actors one unlikely to lead to further aggregation influences others, ranging from diffusion given that ‘‘the interactional demands of the processestosituationsofinterpersonal clique grow exponentially with the size of influence. Among other things, he argues the group’’ (p. 72). One of the chapter’s that interpersonal influence, such as could

Contemporary Sociology 40, 1 Review Essays 9 be found among the men depicted in Wil- his analysis in these chapters is extremely liam Whyte’s Street Corner Society, is struc- thin. This means, among other things, that turally different from ‘‘tree’’-like forms of the on-the-ground practices and processes interaction that are rigidly hierarchical and by which structural forms might actually ‘‘in which any node has only one superordi- remain stable or mutate and evolve are left nate’’ (p. 177 n34). obscure, while the realism and true explana- As a sociologist open in principle to net- tory potential of Simmelian sociology are work analysis but still waiting to be con- undercut. vinced of its overall value, I found these The two chapters which are more chapters frustrating and even sterile. To be compelling—Chapter Seven on ‘‘command sure, Martin’s range of intellectual reference structures,’’ particularly in the military, and is vast, and there is pleasure to be had in see- Chapter Eight, which considers the social- ing a brilliant and creative mind churn structural origin of political parties—are through problems. But at precious few points exceptions that prove the rule. In the former, in the discussion does Martin take us inside Martin argues that command structures the worlds of real social actors who inhabit evolve in a ‘‘three-stage process’’ in which— the various structures he analyzes. While he under certain socio-technical conditions—(1) offers many empirical examples to illustrate ‘‘patronage triangles’’ transform into (2) his claims, the implications of the structures ‘‘pyramidal structure[s]’’ and then (3) mutate in question for actors’ experiences and under- into ‘‘command tree[s]’’ when ‘‘some form of standings are given short shrift. His typical transitivity is imposed on the previously procedure is to engage in a brief armchair intransitive pyramid’’ (p. 233). In the latter reconstruction of the social logic those actors chapter, he claims that ‘‘(1) the building must be following, and then to advance blocks of parties are of two types, horizon- a claim about the intrinsic properties or trans- tal relationships of alliance and vertical formative potential of a structure given (in relationships more akin to patronage; (2) part) such a logic. For example, drawing on either of these may be sufficient to coordi- the work of anthropologist Michael Bollig, nate local or relatively nonmobilized poli- at one point Martin charts patterns of gift-giv- tics. (3) establishing a national level party ing among 37 Pokot herdsmen in Kenya to requires melding these relationships’’ show that some social systems are ‘‘de facto (p. 297). In both chapters these and other redistributive without being clearly orga- arguments are amply illustrated with his- nized in such a fashion’’ (p. 76). On the basis torical examples, including an extended of a graph he infers some heuristics the and perceptive discussion of the history of herdsmen follow to achieve this result— American party politics. Not only do Mar- without any reference to the ethnographic lit- tin’s claims gain plausibility from the pair- erature that could establish whether in fact ing of analytical accounts of structural they conceive of their gift-giving in anything emergence with historical ones. He also like the manner he suggests. Bollig (2000) takes the time to show us flesh and blood himself, a committed network structuralist, socialactors—kings,lords,soldiers,states- argues that there is little connection between men, party bosses, etc.—immersed in spe- the herdsmens’ understanding and represen- cific cultural contexts, forced to gear their tation of their gift giving practices and the action in certain ways in light of then-existing actual structure of their exchanges, but on structural patterns, and experiencing ten- theoretical grounds this is a very controver- sions and difficulties that, in aggregate and sial claim, and Martin, who takes only three over time, help to select for new structural pages with the case, does not trouble himself forms. Some of the hypotheses advanced with the matter (though he does at least take have far-reaching implications. a stab in the introduction at justifying his Had the entire book followed the lead of focus on highly simplified decision rules). these two chapters, I would recommend it One gets the sense that for him the posited unreservedly. I still recommend it. But any ‘‘duality’’ between structure and culture is sociologist who prefers Wolff’s Simmel—or a duality in name only; the cultural side of Levine’s—to that of, say, Harrison White, is

Contemporary Sociology 40, 1 10 Review Essays going to have a long slog before getting to the Egalitarian Society: The Pastoral Pokot of good stuff. Northern Kenya.’’ Ethnos 65:341-65. Wolff, Kurt H. 1958. ‘‘The Challenge of Durkheim and Simmel.’’ American Journal of Sociology 63:590-6. References Bollig, Michael. 2000. ‘‘Staging Social Structures: Ritual and Social Organisation in an

Criminology, Racial Dehumanization and the Crime of Genocide in Darfur

DAVID A. SNOW AND YANG SU University of California, Irvine [email protected] [email protected]

Three major narratives are spun in this wel- come addition to the limited but ongoing Darfur and the Crime of Genocide,by analysis of the genocide in Darfur, and to John Hagan and Wenona Rymond- the scholarly study of genocide more gener- Richmond. New York, NY: Cambridge ally. One narrative concerns the absence of University Press, 2009. 269pp. $25.99 the criminological voice in accounting for paper. ISBN: 9780521731355. genocide, not only in Darfur but more broadly and historically. The second con- cerns the debate and politics shrouding the void between Glueck’s work on genocide that determination of the number of genocidal culminated in 1946 and the application of deaths in Darfur. And the third concerns criminological insights to Kosovo and Darfur. the causes of the genocide and their inter- John Hagen and Wenona Rymond-Richmond connection, with an emphasis on the racial argue now that much is to be gained analyti- aspect of the genocide. cally, especially given criminology’s prioritiza- The first narrative, written from the van- tion of ‘‘issues of political and legal responsi- tage point of two sociological criminologists, bility’’ (p. 67) that accent ‘‘the role of state-led laments criminology’s neglect of genocide, and organized intentions’’ (p. 221). especially since it is ‘‘the crime of crimes’’ We do not take exception with this lament and since, it is argued, ‘‘criminology brings about criminology’s neglect of genocide and an essential perspective to the understanding the claim about its analytic purchase, but of war and human rights crimes’’ such as would argue, based on our knowledge of genocide (p. 67). The issue is not that instan- the range of scholarship on the topic derived ces of genocide have been fully ignored by from co-teaching several seminars on geno- criminologists, as the authors highlight Shel- cide and mass killing and Yang Su’s (2010) don Glueck’s pioneering work on Nazi war research, that the same lament and claim crimes that had an important influence on are applicable to other kindred social science the Nuremberg Trial and related internation- disciplines, including sociology as we will al war crimes. Rather, the issue is ‘‘why so note later. few researchers remember this work’’ and The second narrative is an accompaniment whyGlueckhimselfstoppedpursuingit of nearly all descriptive and explanatory (p. 36). So not only was Glueck ‘‘criminology’s accounts of specific cases of genocide, wheth- forgotten voice’’ with respect to the analysis of er in Cambodia, Kosovo, Rwanda, Darfur, or genocidal crimes, but such crimes were essen- elsewhere, and whether the accounts are tially off criminology’s radar until aspects of skewed in a journalistic or scholarly direc- the perspective were applied to mass killings tion. Here the animating issue is the number in Kosovo and now Darfur. It is left to specula- of deaths, with Hagan and Rymond- tion as to what accounted for the longstanding Richmond tracking two attendant issues:

Contemporary Sociology 40, 1 Review Essays 11 the political debate shrouding the questions victimization data based on one thousand of whether the deaths were genocidal and interviews conducted by the ADS in Chad how many such deaths could be established, with refuges from Darfur, the authors ana- and the development of a kind of best- lyze this racial element via a ‘‘critical collec- practices method for establishing the scale tive framing approach.’’ This approach por- of atrocities in a compelling fashion. Not sur- trays the ‘‘racial division between Arab and prisingly, estimates can vary considerably black African groups in Sudan’’ as ‘‘socially, depending on various political issues and politically, and historically constructed’’ the accounting methods used, as reflected in (p. 163) and the constructed racial character the World Health Organization’s estimate of of the epithets as providing the motivational 60,000 deaths versus the Atrocities Documen- spark for the repeated frenzied attacks on tation Survey [(ADS) of Darfur refugees in black Africans and their villages. In addition, Chad in the summer of 2004] estimates of the authors employ statistical modeling tech- 3,000,0001 deaths and nearly 4,000,000 either niques to ferret out the kinds of factors and missing or dead. Because of various political settlements patterns (since the interviews contingencies, detailed in Chapters Three came from nearly 1,000 persons spread across and Four, media reported deaths bounced 22 settlements) that were most likely to be back and forth and between these estimates, associated with respondent claims that they pushing the authors to develop an alternative heard racial epithets when attacked prior to estimation approach ‘‘that bridged the con- their flight to the Chad refugee camps. That cerns of the crime and health perspectives’’ the racial epithets were most likely to be (p. 97), with the results skewed in the direc- heard, and thus shouted, when Sudanese tion of the ADS estimates. ‘‘This approach,’’ government forces and Janjaweed militias with its emphasis on the logic of crime victim- attacked together rather than separately, ization surveys, led the authors ‘‘to estimate and when the attacks were carried out in vil- that hundreds of thousands, instead of tens lages populated mainly by civilians rather of thousands, of victims died in Darfur— than suspected rebels, were the most telling correcting misleading claims to the contrary findings because they underscore the racial by the U.S. State Department’’ (p. 221). targeting of civilians and role of the Sudanese The third narrative focuses on the causes of government in the genocide. the genocide. The authors discerned a constel- The analysis of the racial dimension of the lation of elements that characterized the genocide is the book’s central contribution. repeated genocidal attacks by Arab Janja- Yet, we wonder if this element is overplayed. weed militia and the Sudanese government In as much as it provides a ‘‘spark’’ for the on black African groups in Darfur. This clus- attacks and frenzied killing, it seems a proxi- ter of elements included: ongoing ‘‘us’’ and mal rather than distal causal factor that pro- ‘‘them’’ tension between black African farm- vides the attackers with a kind of psycholog- ers and nomadic Arab herders, governmental ical moral exemption or acquittal that is part arming of the Janjaweed militias, Sudanese and parcel of the dehumanizing ‘‘othering’’ government bombing of African villages, associated not only with mass killings and joint ground attacks by government soldiers genocide in general, but even in preparation and the militias, a racially explicit and ani- for combat in more conventionalized killing mated animus to these village attacks, sexual contexts and fields. Dehumanizing othering violence, property confiscation, displacement is often based on factors beyond race—such of the black Africans, and resettlement by as class, ethnicity, gender, nationality, and Arab groups of the lands of the displaced per- religion—and it is generally regarded as sons. Of these nine elements, the one that is a necessary condition for mass killings and, the focus of attention and around which the as such, functions as a kind of ‘‘genocidal causal narrative spins is the racial element, priming’’ (Hinton 2002, p. 36). But being as reflected repeatedly in the racial epithets a necessary condition does not make it a suffi- shouted out by the Sudanese and Janjaweed cient condition, which Hagan and Rymond- attackers, such as ‘‘This is the last day for Richmond fully recognize. But by accenting blacks’’ and ‘‘You are black and you deserve racial dehumanization so heavily, other fac- to be tortured like this’’ (p. 172). Using the tors are perhaps underplayed (see Daly

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2007). One such factor is the longstanding contribution is to the sociological literature tension between the lifestyles of the Arab on genocide, which is relatively sparse in nomadic herders and black African farmers, comparison to scholarly genocide research which has been fueled by the desertification conducted by historians and political scien- of the land in the Darfur area of Sudan. But tists, and which generally has a macroscop- one can only speak empirically to what the ic, state focus (e.g., Horowitz 1982; Kuper data allow, and it may well be that the ADS 1981; Mann 2005), with scant attention giv- survey was limited in the kinds of questions en to the more microscopic, on-the-ground asked and the refugee accounts extracted. dynamics of genocide. Clearly one of the This is hard to know, however, as there is lit- book’s strengths in this regard is the use tle told about the survey. of contemporary victimization accounts We also would like to have seen greater use while most analyses of cases of genocide of refugee accounts presumably laced have to be reconstructed from more distant through the ADS survey. Refugee voices are historical materials. And the book’s third certainly represented, particularly in Chap- contribution is its probing inquiry into ters Five and Six on ‘‘eyewitnessing geno- criminology’s relative neglect of genocide cide’’ and ‘‘the rolling genocide.’’ But giving and its attendant call for criminological voice to more refugee accounts, particularly and sociological analyses of the causes of in relation to ‘‘the racial spark’’ and other fac- and responses to this ‘‘crime of crimes.’’ tors, would have made the authors’ causal Clearly this is required reading for those narrative even more compelling. interested in the causes and dynamics of Another troubling feature of the book is mass killings, the political debates about that the three narratives are not seamlessly whether and when they constitute geno- intertwined in a fashion that would enhance cides, and the more general issue of interna- its readability. In fact, we had a sense at tional justice. times that we were reading two different books—one on criminology’s neglect of geno- cide as ‘‘the crime of crimes,’’ and one on the References racial dimension of the Darfur genocide, with the recounting of the debate on victim num- Daly, M. W. 2007. Darfur’s Sorrow. New York, NY: Cambridge University. bers overlapping both. Hinton, Alexander. 2002. Annihilating Difference: These few concerns notwithstanding, The Anthropology of Genocide. Berkeley, CA: Darfur and the Crime of Genocide is a welcome University of California Press. addition to three sets of scholarly literature Horowitz, Irving Louis. 1982. Taking Lives: Geno- on genocide. The first contribution is to cide and State Power. Third augmented edition. the still limited and ongoing analysis of the New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction Books. Kuper, Leo. 1981. Genocide: Its Political Use in the genocide in Darfur, which heretofore has Twentieth Century. New York, NY: Penguin been limited primarily to broad overviews Books. of the context and the array of factors Mann, Michael. 2005. The Dark Side of Democracy: thought to account for the genocide (e.g., Explaining Ethnic Cleansing. New York, NY: Daly 2007 and Prunier 2005), but with little Cambridge University Press. systematic empirical analysis of the various Prunier, Gerard. 2005. Darfur: The Ambiguous Genocide. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University causal factors or correlates of the kind Hagan Press. and Rymond-Richmond provide, particular- Su, Yang. 2010. Collective Killings in Rural China ly with respect to the salience of the racial during the Cultural Revolution. New York, NY: dimension of the genocide. The second Cambridge University Press.

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