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Common Frontiers of the Social Sciences by Mirra Komarovsky Review by: Benjamin H. Williams The Scientific Monthly, Vol. 85, No. 2 (Aug., 1957), pp. 105-106 Published by: American Association for the Advancement of Science Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/22204 . Accessed: 01/05/2014 07:36 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]. . American Association for the Advancement of Science is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to The Scientific Monthly. http://www.jstor.org This content downloaded from 130.132.123.28 on Thu, 1 May 2014 07:36:12 AM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

Common Frontiers of the Social Sciencesby Mirra Komarovsky

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Page 1: Common Frontiers of the Social Sciencesby Mirra Komarovsky

Common Frontiers of the Social Sciences by Mirra KomarovskyReview by: Benjamin H. WilliamsThe Scientific Monthly, Vol. 85, No. 2 (Aug., 1957), pp. 105-106Published by: American Association for the Advancement of ScienceStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/22204 .

Accessed: 01/05/2014 07:36

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 ofcontent in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new formsof scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected].

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American Association for the Advancement of Science is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve andextend access to The Scientific Monthly.

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Page 2: Common Frontiers of the Social Sciencesby Mirra Komarovsky

clinical areas undertaken to illustrate the impor- tance of basic research in their development. Pre- ceded by a thought-provoking introductory chapter on the "Current metabolic concepts orienting re- search in biology and medicine," the nine reviews are "Cancer," "Infertility," "Arteriosclerosis," "Hy- pertension," "The rheumatic syndromes," "Tu- berculosis," "The nature of viruses and of virus dis- eases," "Alcoholism," and the "Biology of schizo- phrenia." It is interesting to note that only two of these represent the infectious diseases which were of such importance in past times, whereas the grow- ing emphasis on the diseases associated with aging leads to the inclusion of four such examples, and the critical importance of mental diseases is rep- resented by two examples. Only infertility seems a somewhat odd choice; excessive fertility rather than infertility seems to be the world's more critical problem today, and yet that aspect is not considered.

These reviews are not written for the specialized investigator and are much more readable than the succinct statements about researches now in prog- ress which make up the part of volume 1 that deals with institutions. Here, ideas are brought into con- text, and a considerable synthesis results, whereas the accounts of the work being done in the different departments of some university or medical school are cryptic and disjointed. What is most important, of course, is evaluation. It would be too much to expect anyone, and particularly a person who is not an investigator in biology, to do more than has been done here; but in volume 1 the accounts are obviously often abstracted from the annual re- ports of the institutions; these reports, in turn, are greatly condensed from accounts of their research supplied by individual investigators, who, natu- rally enough, wish to put their own work in the best light. The task of critical evaluation thus be- comes insuperable. In volume 2 the reviews have a more critical, as well as a more comprehensive, character, and for this Miss Lape deserves great credit.

Each volume has an extensive list of the major sources used. General tables of contents for each volume and more detailed tables of contents for subsections make it fairly easy to find any desired topic. This is very fortunate, for there is no index of any kind.

One cannot doubt that these volumes will be of great value to all persons concerned with the or- ganization and direction, or with the support, of medical research and education. Every biologist will take great pride and draw much encourage- ment from the fundamental role here shown to be played by his chosen field. The same thing will

apply to those who work in other sciences which provide a basis for medical developments. One may reasonably question, however, whether one of the desired aims of the work has been fulfilled-- namely, that of convincing nonscientists of the fundamental necessity for supporting basic research in biology and medicine more strongly in relation to the amount of support now given to applied re- search and development. Will Congressmen, the directors of research in various government depart- ments which need not be named, and the directors of money-raising funds and associations and of commercial firms that are legitimately interested in new products read these detailed volumes and be convinced? In spite of my wish that it might be so, I must doubt it. The clipped, terse style of the books, the meaty pages of information, the careful discussions of the relative wisdom of conflicting policies will scarcely appeal to the general reader, and the very magnitude of the task which has been accomplished puts the work into the category of an encyclopedia. What we may hope for is that now some gifted popular science writer may use this monumental work to good effect and succeed in convincing the American people that all scien- tific development, that of medicine included, grows from basic research, as flowers and fruit grow from the tree.

BENTLEY GLASS Johns Hopkins University

Common Frontiers of the Social Sciences. Mirra Komarovsky, Ed. Free Press, Glencoe, Ill., 1957. viii + 439 pp. $6.

The contacts and relationships between the social sciences are innumerable. In fact, these subjects constitute a body of information and theory that might be regarded as a seamless web, divided only for purposes of analysis and instruction. You cannot tell people everything at once, so you start with small bits that eventually add up to the orthodox disciplines, which, in the social sciences, are an- thropology, economics, history, law, political sci- ence, psychology, sociology, and some others. Scholars working in these fields develop points of view, methods, and a language (sometimes appro- priately called "gobbledygook") different from those of their colleagues in the other artificially created compartments. They are often uninformed regarding developments in the other fields that vitally affect their own subject matter. To show the unity of the social sciences and to make available to each group the methods, points of view, and discoveries of the others would be a colossal work,

August 1957 105

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Page 3: Common Frontiers of the Social Sciencesby Mirra Komarovsky

with benefits invaluable. The Encyclopedia of the Social Sciences, published in 1930, has made a great contribution to these purposes.

The editor of Common Frontiers of the Social Sciences has undertaken the more modest task of bringing together some dozen articles dealing with subjects in history, economics, and sociology which cover a few specific overlapping areas and common methods. The usefulness of the public opinion poll as a tool for scholars in these three subjects is dis- cussed. The different ways in which economists and sociologists attack one common problem, the oper- ation of the industrial plant, are compared. Argu- ments for and against the sociological concept of the plant as an organization of human beings that requires much teamwork between managers and workers are presented. The economist John May- nard Keynes is evaluated from the standpoint of the psychologist and sociologist.

There can be no complaint regarding the quality of the individual contributions. They are all in- formative, and some of them are fascinating. But they hardly form a well-knit organization around the subject of the volume. Some of the essays, de- spite their individual intrinsic merit, do not seem to touch the subject at all, except possibly in the sense that any fundamental discussion is bound to fall within the frontiers of more than one academic field. The editor makes an able and valiant at- tempt, in the introduction, to tie these contribu- tions together in a pattern of unity that might otherwise not be fully apparent to the reader.

BENJAMIN H. WILLIAMS industrial College of the Armed Forces

Machine Literature Searching. James W. Perry, Allen Kent, and Madeline M. Berry. Western Reserve University Press, Cleveland, Ohio; In- terscience, New Y6rk, 1956. 162 pp. $4.

This book, composed of 15 chapters and a bibli- ography, reprints ten articles that the authors have written over the past few years for American Docu- mentation. The bibliography, prepared by Helen Loftus and Allen Kent, also appeared there and apparently was not brought up to date for the book.

It is well to have all of this material put out in book form, for it constitutes a unified presentation of one of the most active groups in the field of sci- entific documentation. It is, in my opinion, how- ever, a book for the specialist, and the unprepared reader will find the material difficult.

The most important chapters deal with such topics as class definition and code construction,

machine language, encoded abstracts, and search- ing strategy. Some of these matters have never been adequately explored before, and these essays will obviously be starting points for future work.

I have several minor criticisms. Chapter IV, "Collection of terminology," tells only how termi- nology was gathered, without giving any extensive sample of the material found (nowhere in the book is this included--a serious omission). One has the impression that Chapter IV was included in the book only because it formed a part of the original series; the material it consists of belongs in an appendix. It is curious to find these careful dealers in words using homonym for homograph (page 11). The bibliography fails to include the work of Mortimer Taube and his associates.

The main impression I have on finishing the book is the great deal of work still to be done be- fore a fully integrated system can be a working reality. This is not a reflection on James Perry and his group, who are obviously at the forefront of a critical intellectual development, but rather an indication of the embryonic "state of the art."

KARL F. HEUMANN

Chemical Abstracts Service

The Land Called Me. An autobiography. E. John Russell. Allen and Unwin, London, 1956. 286 pp. + plates. $5.75.

I have generally been fortunate in the books I am asked to review, in this instance exceptionally so. Russell's Soil Conditions and Plant Growth has been an honored familiar since student days. Con- sequently, when I was working briefly in England in 1922, Russell was one of the individuals I had hoped most to meet. He was, I believe, away at the time, so I had to be content with finding out what I could about him.

I remember asking for particulars from an elderly friend-one of those baffling British per- sonalities who could be counted on to stand up and face the bullets on behalf of class and its obliga- tions or, with equal courage, to do so for the rights of the individual. His first comment was "He comes from the people," then, as though having done his duty in that respect, my informant proceeded to square matters by a fine, sincere tribute to Rus- sell as a scientist and a man.

Thus briefly and prophetically two aspects of Sir John Russell's character and career were set forth almost precisely as they later camne to divide his autobiography. The first portion of the book is a powerful human document, telling what it meant to grow up in poverty and get an education de-

THE SCIENTIFIC MONTHLY

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