GENERALITHEORETICALANTHROPOLOGY

dience, both within and beyond the fields of

anthropology and psychology.

To Take Place: Toward Theory in Ritual.

Jonathan 2. Smith. Chicago Studies in the History of Judaism. Chicago, IL: University of
Chicago Press, 1987. 202 pp. $27.50 (cloth).
C. SCOTTLITTLETON
Occidental College
Perhaps the best way to characterize this
slim volume ( 1 17 pages of text plus 47 more
devoted to notes) is to call it a fascinating potpourri of intellectual razzle-dazzle. Based on a
series of lectures Smith gave at Brown University in 1985, it ranges-not all that systematically-across a bewildering array of ideas and
phenomena, including the Aranda Tjilpa
myth, Ezekiels vision of the Temple, humanistic geography, and the symbolism associated with Jerusalems Church of the Holy
Sepulchre. T o be sure, there is a central
theme: the relationship between ritual and
place. But despite the fact that the dustjacket
promises a significant advance toward a theory of ritual, by the end of the last chapter
about all the author can manage is a rather
obvious paradigm predicated on the proposition that ritual is, at bottom, an assertion of
difference, and that it [ritual] relies for its
power on the fact that it is concerned with
quite ordinary activities placed within an extraordinary setting (p. 109). This is hardly
original, as anyone familiar with contemporary symbolic anthropology, or, indeed, the
ideas of the late Max Gluckman, can attest.
Nevertheless, despite his less than startling
conclusions, to say nothing of his unfortunate
tendency to bombard the reader with a veritable plethora of references, as if he were a
doctoral candidate trying to impress his thesis
committee, Smith obviously knows what hes
talking about. To cite one example: his fascinating observation that the Church of the
Holy Sepulchre, constructed in 335 A.D. by
Constantine the Great, was conceived as the
successor to Solomons Temple and reflected
the triumph of the new religion over the demonic depredations of earlier Roman Emperors-most notably Hadrian, who, in leveling and rebuilding the city, was believed to
have deliberately obliterated the sites associated with the Crucifixion and its immediate
aftermath-and that the first Christian Emperor created for the first time a Christian
Holy Land, laid palimpsest-like over the
old (p. 79).
In addition, as one might expect from a
scholar of Smiths stature and erudition, the

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book includes some critical assessments of earlier theories and interpretations. Some of these
are gems, such as his convincing demonstration of where Eliade went wrong in his interpretation of the Tjilpa myth, and his assertion
that the late Georges Dumtzil was perhaps
the most significant contemporary student of
religion whose work can be related to the Durkheimian enterprise (p. 40). Moreover, his
critical application of the ideas of humanistic
geographer Paul Wheatley is both apt and instructive. Unfortunately, however, some of his
assessments fall far short of the mark. For example, his characterization of Robert Bellahs
highly regarded paradigm for the evolution of
religion as irresponsibly crude (p. 52) is itself irresponsible in the extreme; egregious
comments like this detract from Smiths credibility and should have been edited out long
before the book went to press.
As should be obvious by this point, my overall reaction to To Take Place is thoroughly
mixed. Although the book is not the major
contribution to theory it purports to be, and is
flawed by ad hominem attacks of the sort just
noted, one cannot help but admire (most of
the time) the brilliance and sheer audacity of
both its style and its sometimes disjointed substance. Indeed, all things considered, it certainly deserves a place-if not an especially
prominent place-in the symbolic anthropologists working library.

Visibility and Power: Essays on Women in

Society and Development. Leela Dube,
Eleanor Leacock, and Shirlcy Ardener, eds. Delhi:
Oxford University Press, 1986.410 pp. $29.95
(cloth).
REGINA
SMITHOBOLER
Ursinus College
Though few new ideas are to be found in
these 19 articles collected (with 3 exceptions)
from the 1978 New Delhi International Congress ofAnthropologica1 and Ethnological Sciences, some valuable features make this volumes publication better late than never. First,
it brings together a number of different position statements on the issues of visibility,
power, dominance, and related concepts (although some of the most prominent authors,
e.g., Claude Meillassoux and Edwin Ardener,
make disappointingly broad and oversimplified contributions). Second, it features work
by Third World women anthropologist& of
21 contributors-and gives their ideas a wide
audience. Third, Dubes introduction provides a good review of relevant literature to
1982.