Review

Authors(s): Zali Gurevitch

Review by: Zali Gurevitch
Source: Contemporary Sociology, Vol. 20, No. 2 (Mar., 1991), pp. 317-318
Published by: American Sociological Association
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2073017
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318 REVIEWS

I see promise in the practice of grounding

in sociology. My only reservation is the

coverage and the diversity of perspectives

represented here.

It certainly is unrealistic and probably

reflexive mode. In the last chapter, which

O'Neill calls "a sociological prayer," he

writes that the task of sociology is "concen-

trating upon sociology the salvation of self

and circumstances as a connection of love as

well as of knowledge." This is tempting, but

it circumvents the problem of knowledge that

cuts through life, and brings about shame,

pain, and the failure of communication. Can

we really combine the tree of life and the tree

of knowledge into the one tree of the

"communicative body"? The overemphasis

on communicativeness glosses over what

remains opaque and dark in human relations:

the incommunicative nucleus of body and

being that sets us apart. Knowledge has cost

us our place in Eden where "coexistence of

consciousnesses" perhaps took place. Reflex-

ivity out of Eden must be taken into

consideration, even if it seems to defy the

general hypothesis of human communication

on which this advanced reflexive sociology is

unfair to expect otherwise. Nevertheless, the

broad theme does favor diversity and diver-

gence rather than consistency and focus. As

in several of the prior volumes in this

series, readers will be given much informa-

tion and many provocative assessments but

they will not find a strong sense of central

direction in the field. The choice of theme

perhaps precludes such a substantive focus as

that of Alice Rossi's Gender and the Life

Course (1984) or the programmatic compara-

tive-methodological emphasis of Melvin

Kohn's Cross-National Research in Sociology

(1989).

The present volume comes somewhat

closer to earlier reviews of the field, e.g.,

Hubert Blalock's Sociological Theory and

Research: A Critical Appraisal (1980), but its

disciplinary self-analysis is of a rather differ-

ent character, as we shall see.

Parts 1 and 2 sketch the reciprocal

influences between sociology and its U.S.

based.

environment. First, Dennis Wrong notes the

skeptical view of sociology often held by

other disciplines and the self-characterization

Theory and Methods

of the field as debunker and social critic (no

way to win a popularity contest). Yet, he

A Turbulent Field: Diversity and

observes, major sociological ideas do find

Divergence in American Sociology

their way into popular discourse, even as the

salient orientations of the field interact in very

Sociology in America, edited by HERBERT J.

complex ways with prevalent U.S. values and

GANS. Newbury Park, CA: Sage, 1990. 333

beliefs. For his part, Joseph Gusfield propp. $45.00 cloth. $24.00 paper. ISBN:

poses that the major influences of sociology

0-8039-3827-6.

on its environing society come not from its

ROBIN M. WILLIAMS, JR.

technical knowledge but rather from its

images, metaphors, and concepts. He sees the

Cornell University

master example in sociological irony that

This, the latest volume in the continuing

American Sociological Association Presiden-

tial Series, consists of articles selected and

edited by Herbert Gans from papers presented

at the 1988 meetings of the Association. The

twenty-one chapters are grouped into eight

parts: 1. "Sociology's Effects on America";

2. "America's Effects on Sociology"; 3.

continually transforms the familiar into the

strange or problematic.

In Part 2, Neil Smelser analyzes external

influences upon sociology-including cultural

context, social origins and positions, receptiv-

ity or hostility of the political environment,

ideological opposition, and organizational

settings. The diagnosis ends with the predic-

"Sociology and American Public Policy"; 4.

tion that the model of empirical science will

"Sociology and Critical American Issues"; 5.

be the dominant mode of the sociology of the

"Sociology and Its Constituencies"; 6. "Soci-

future. Focusing on the "curious importance"

ology and Social Criticism"; 7. "Foreign

Sociologists Look at U.S. Sociology"; 8.

"Sociology and the Other Social Sciences."

This roll call itself suggests the breadth of

of the small group in American sociology,

Allan Silver discusses the influences of

congregational religion and of the deep

cultural assumption that social control does

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