Bannister, Robert C.

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Swarthmore College Works History Faculty Works History 12-1-1973 Review Of "Chicago Sociology, 1920-1932" By R. E.L. Faris Robert C. Bannister Swarthmore College This work is brought to you for free and open access by . It has been accepted for inclusion in History Faculty Works by an authorized administrator of Works. For more information, please contact myworks@swarthmore.edu. 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 you  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  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.orgReview Author(s): Robert C. Bannister Review by: Robert C. Bannister Source:   Isis, Vol. 64, No. 4 (Dec., 1973), pp. 570-571Published by:  on behalf of  The University of Chicago Press The History of Science SocietyStable URL:  http://www.jstor.org/stable/229679Accessed: 11-06-2015 16:03 UTCYour 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.jspJSTOR 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 support@jstor.org.This content downloaded from 130.58.65.13 on Thu, 11 Jun 2015 16:03:40 UTCAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions570 BOOK REVIEWS-ISIS, 64 * 4 * 224 (1973) without an overall knowledge of the space program, as it was the Soviet practice to keep the Germans working on isolated projects. Correctly, Daniloff sees the contribution of German scientists as "mostly complemen- tary." Although the Germans possessed superior technology, Russian theory was equally advanced. By 1947 Stalin and his advisors were convinced that the development of an ICBM was possible and could deliver an atomic warhead, contrary to Vannevar Bush's statement on the impracticality of ICBM development. Daniloff does not see the Russian decision as anything more than a response to U.S. capability and a preoccupa- tion with defense. Space exploration, satel- lites, and their attendant propaganda value were not seriously discussed. During the final months of the Stalin era (1952-1953) the Soviet government began to finalize its rocket development plans. Pre- parations for the International Geophysical Year led to a decision in 1955 to launch a satellite, which was forewarned in Soviet magazines but generally overlooked by Western observers. Pravda spoke of the "American lag" in January 1957. Khrushchev was not fully aware of the propaganda im- pact of Sputnik until several weeks after the launch, but his increasing boastfulness seemed like a challenge to the U.S. The space race to the moon, if it ever existed, was never officially declared by the Kremlin. "Both Kennedy and Khrushchev," Daniloff con- cluded, "tried to harness the superpower rivalry between the United States and the Soviet Union for the purpose of stimulating their own domestic programs-in the Ameri- can case, space exploration; in the Soviet, economic development. Neither thought it worthwhile directly to respond to the other's challenge." Daniloff holds that Krushchev, although cautious about sending a man to the moon, favored a manned expedition, probably by earth orbital rendezvous technique, and pressed space scientists toward this goal. There were skeptics among the scientists and within high policy councils; Daniloff, al- though unable to identify them by name, presents evidence for their existence. Up to Krushchev's ouster in 1964 the Soviets were seriously studying how to achieve a manned landing. After the Premier's removal, manned flight receded into the background and auto- mated spacecraft was publicized in flights to Mars and Venus and the landing of an eight- wheeled moon rover, Lunakhod-1, in 1970. Aware of U.S. progress, in 1968 the Russians ceased their propaganda statements about reaching the moon first. Daniloff views cooperation as essentially confined to talks between Kennedy and Khrushchev and their respective representa- tives because of outstanding political and military disarmament problems. Exchange of information from agreements on weather satellites, magnetic field data, and space medicine has lagged badly. After the U.S. lunar landing, cooperation on the Skylab project opens possibilities for joint efforts in the late 1970s in orbital laboratories. In concluding, Daniloff asserts that the Soviets did participate in the space race, especially when Khrushchev was in power, in spite of the fact that the Kremlin never officially made the challenge. The evidence here is simply that the Russians laid claim to many "firsts" in the early years of the space age. The Kremlin and the Cosmos supplies a great deal of data to enable the reader to assess the Soviet space program; but as the author freely admits, much information re- mains secret, and conclusions drawn are open to revision in the light of new evidence. JOHN STUART BELTZ Research Institute University of Alabama Huntsville, Alabama 35807 Robert E. L. Faris. Chicago Sociology, 1920- 1932. xi + 163 pp., 8 illus., 2 apps., name and subject indices. San Francisco: Chandler Publishing Company; Scranton, Pa.: Intext/ Chandler, 1967. $8. A brief, clearly organized overview, this study traces the development of sociology at the University of Chicago during its first three decades. Although gaining prominence with the arrival of Robert Park in 1915, the Chicago School owed much to a fortuitous combination of circumstance and zeal in its early days: the newness of the university; a tailor-made social laboratory in Chicago; the organizing genius of Albion Small, chairman of the department from 1892 to 1923; and the methodological work of W. I. Thomas. The resulting harvest was abundant: This content downloaded from 130.58.65.13 on Thu, 11 Jun 2015 16:03:40 UTCAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and ConditionsBOOK REVIEWS-ISIS, 64 * 4 * 224 (1973) 571 in urban ecology, in social psychology (Chicago practiced "symbolic interaction- ism," Robert B. L. Faris writes, before the label was known), and in widely ranging studies of the family, race, immigration, and social change. Together these investigations overturned a "do-gooder" tradition that, in Faris' view, blighted earlier effort. Freeing sociology from moorings in physiology and biology, they also fostered more enlightened social policy. In preparing this informal history, Faris draws on his own memories as an under- graduate and graduate at Chicago (1924- 1931), on the reminiscences of former associates, and on past conversations with his father, the late Ellsworth Faris, who headed the department from Small's retire- ment until 1939. In supplement, he provides portraits and brief sketches of leading mem- bers of the department and complete lists of doctoral and masters theses from 1893 to 1935. Intending a straightforward, "objec- tive" account, he attempts no refutation of recent criticism of the Chicago School (e.g., in Milton Gordon's Social Class in American Sociology or Maurice Stein's The Eclipse of Community). Nor does he dwell on the clash of personalities or on departmental politics, persuaded that such have little place in a history of social science. Although specialists may regret these decisions, and the absence of more raw material for a sociology of Chicago sociology, this fairminded compre- hensive account, with its lucid summaries of the chief works of the Chicago sociologists, provides a balanced general introduction to an important chapter in the history of social science. ROBERT C. BANNISTER Department of History Swarthmore College Swarthmore, Pennsylvania 19081 Robert F. Murphy. Robert H. Lowie. (Leaders of Modern Anthropology Series.) ix + 179 pp., bibl. New York: Columbia University Press, 1972. $7.50. Robert F. Murphy's Robert H. Lowie is the second book to be published in Columbia University Press' Leaders of Modern An- thropology Series. Together with the first volume on Ralph Linton, co-authored by Adelin Linton and the general editor of the series, Charles Wagley, it indicates a format for the series as a whole: a text of just under two hundred pages, roughly divided into an eighty-page essay on the subject and his work, followed by selections from the sub- ject's publications, and concluding with a more or less complete bibliography depend- ing on whether a complete bibliography is readily available elsewhere. Both published books self-consciously aim at a general audience of presumably undergraduate-level competence in anthropology, and all of the authors including those announced for pro- jected volumes are either personal acquain- tances of their subjects (usually former associates) or they are slightly younger scholars whose expertise was the subject's major area of interest. All have established some professional identity as anthropologists. These general observations point to the peculiar constraints on the value of Murphy's book. In the case of the Linton study there had previously existed no biographical or autobiographical studies, no collection of Linton's papers, and no complete biblio- graphy. The remarks of Linton's widow, however uneven, are therefore invaluable. But in the case of Lowie, there already existed a published autobiography, Cora Du Bois' selection of Lowie's papers (although Murphy duplicated only one of her selec- tions), and Alan Dundes' complete biblio- graphy. Murphy is himself an anthropologist, not a biographer or historian, and he admits to having drawn most of his information from Lowie's own account, even though a wealth of information is to be found in the Lowie papers in the Bancroft Library. The account, however, is sympathetic, con- trasting markedly with the hypercritical chapter on Lowie in Marvin Harris' 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- ence is by implication quite definitely anthropological, indicated in the sub- division of the biographical "reminiscence" into two sections: "Lowie the Ethnographer" and "Lowie the Social Theorist." Emphasis is placed on the general anthropological climate within which Lowie was trained and began his fieldwork among the American Indians. In context Murphy usefully relates Lowie's This content downloaded from 130.58.65.13 on Thu, 11 Jun 2015 16:03:40 UTCAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

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

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

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