As Jones demonstrates with reference to Aristotle, among others, many of the problems thatconcerned Durkheim are not entirely specific to the Third Republic but are of general humansignificance. This is why Durkheim struggled so hard to balance the socially constructivistdimensions of his own theories with a desire to establish notions of the true and the real, and whyhe sought to develop an account of the historical development of different social forms alongsidea concern for the elementary processes through which all social phenomena arise. Jones claimsthat his approach does not leave Durkheim stranded entirely in the contingencies of the ThirdRepublic, since the very difference of the Durkheim revealed by the historicist method challengesour own taken-for-granted assumptions about the world. Nonetheless, it does tend to limitDurkheim’s contemporary relevance since it robs his project of a moral foundation: rather thangrappling with enduring human dilemmas about society, nature, religion and morality, Durkheimis merely employing ‘rhetorical strategies’ appropriate to an increasingly distant culture.

In general, however, this book displays the impressive breadth and depth of Jones’sscholarship. It is a scholarly, well-written and valuable contribution to Durkheimian studies thatwill be of considerable interest to other researchers in the field.

Philip A. MellorUniversity of Leeds

School of Theology and Religious StudiesLeeds LS2 9JT

UK

E-mail address: p.a.mellor@leeds.ac.uk (P.A. Mellor)

doi:10.1016/S0048-721X(03)00044-7

Thomas A. Idinopulos and Brian C. Wilson (eds). Reappraising Durkheim for the Studyand Teaching of Religion Today. Leiden, Brill, 2002, xix+192 pp., V62/US$72 ISBN 9004 12339 3.

The title of this book is misleading. There is little here that would either help the reappraisal ofDurkheim’s account of religion or make a contribution to the teaching of religion. Nor is theremuch overall coherence among the essays, one or two of which are slight, though most arethoroughly worthwhile. In the latter regard, I would draw attention in particular to Watts Miller’smeditation upon Maffesoli’s The Time of the Tribes (1996), Segal’s account of the importance ofRobertson Smith, and the three essays mentioned below. I will make two related substantivepoints with respect to a contemporary reading of Durkheim, and raise one quibble.

A number of the essays work in the idiom of the history of ideas, the carefully chronicled (oroccasionally speculative) colouring-in of the context of one or another aspect of Durkheim’sthought. We have examples of the work of two acknowledged masters of the genre: Robert AlunJones and Ivan Strenski. The problem with this approach concerns what we might call necessaryconnection: it is possible to list influences in terms of potential sources or anticipations, but it isharder to demonstrate that a particular influence was in fact effective, and to explain the reason

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for its effect. Strenski addresses this issue (see pp. 118f.) as does Jones elsewhere(‘On Understanding a Sociological Classic’, American Journal of Sociology 83 [1977]: 279–319;p. 203—cited by Strenski), but I am unconvinced that either has resolved it.

A theory of literary influences is based upon three theoretical presuppositions (cf. LouisAlthusser, ‘On the Young Marx’, For Marx [London, Penguin, 1969], pp. 56ff.). First, it holdsthat any constituted and organic system of thought is reducible to its elements, so that anyelement may be isolated and compared with a similar element drawn from another system.Second, the significance of the elements is appraised with respect either to an origin or to anoutcome by some external criteria available to the historian of ideas. The original thought isdissolved into its elements in order that it may be judged according to other norms, ones that donot have to offer any comparable justification of their appropriateness. Last, both thesepresuppositions themselves accept that the history of ideas is itself a sufficient medium whereinthese causalities and explanations occur. In a word, the ideology of the history of ideas isanimistic, as if ideas can curse or bless. Its method dissolves meaning and substitutes its ownteleology and intelligibility; and by making these moves, it loses any grip upon the necessaryconnection of elements in the real world.

It would be a complex matter to resolve these questions, but the point at issue is that Durkheimwas concerned, for example in his notion of ‘the sacred’, precisely with questions of necessaryconnection. I suggest it is misguided to adopt a method that cannot come to grips with what is atstake. Gore Vidal comments somewhere to the effect that Painter’s remarkable biography ofProust does not advance us one iota in our understanding of his book (whose objects are in someways comparable with those of Durkheim). This is a version of the same problem.

The second point is in fact a variant of the first. Tony Edwards puts forward a clearlyargued case to the effect that Durkheim cannot infer a (categorical) ‘ought’ from a (social)‘is’. The problem, again, is that the criterion he employs without a moment’s doubt conjuresaway precisely what is at issue in Durkheim’s thought. One way of defining Modernity is bythe absolute claim of the is/ought distinction, its absolute nature allowing us both to haveour cake and to eat it. Yet the related issues of whether either a value-free social science or avalue-free social fact is possible cannot simply be taken as resolved once and for all. Thediscussion of the inter-penetration of fact and value has a history, whether we are concernedwith a precise understanding of the nature and working of natural science (cf. RogerProctor, Value-free Science? Purity and Power in Modern Knowledge [Cambridge, MA,Harvard University Press, 1991]) or with the broader question of the motivation of humancategories of thought. Durkheim makes a major contribution to both problems. For he is atpains to problematise all our absolutes, pointing out that the classificatory distinctions we makehave their own ‘etymologies’ and histories and that they derive their force from and inparticular located human activities. Edwards’ paper deserves a more thorough reply than I cangive here; one might begin by considering Kant’s claim (cited by him on p. 77) that logic is howthe understanding ought to proceed in thinking. How can logic itself encompass a necessity witheffects in the world unless the boundary between is and ought is less watertight than is claimed?And then, where does the power of this distinction come from, and what is its genealogy? Theseare the kinds of questions that Durkheim is seeking to answer.

My criticism in either case is, then, that the approach adopted, however interesting or welldone, is incapable of getting on terms with Durkheim’s project. One need not assume that

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Durkheim’s project is in the end valid or coherent, simply that it should be taken seriously in itsown terms. My quibble relates to this last point. It is surely a mistake in method to assume, as acouple of the papers do, that Durkheim has made an error or failed to anticipate a point. Thecritic may be right, but this is usually a symptom of a reading at cross-purposes.

In the case of an established author such as Durkheim, even if there is no consensus as to hisachievement, the continuing interest is a testimony to the writer’s worth, a form of collectiverepresentation produced by the ratiocination of many scholarly minds. This book is a contributionto that collective intelligence, but it is hard to believe that it will appeal to a wide audience.

Timothy JenkinsUniversity of Cambridge

Faculty of Theology and Religious StudiesWest Road

Cambridge CB3 9BSUK

E-mail address: TDJ22@jesus.cam.ac.uk (T. D. Jenkins)

doi:10.1016/S0048-721X(03)00050-2

Andrew Holden. Jehovah’s Witnesses: Portrait of a Contemporary Religious Movement.London, Routledge, 2002, xiii+206 pp., £50, $80 (hardback) ISBN 0 415 26609 2,£14.99, $23.95 (paperback) ISBN 0 415 26610 6.

There is a certain truth in Andrew Holden’s remark on the dearth of academic literature aboutthe Jehovah’s Witnesses, in spite of their high visibility in daily life. Although a quick count yieldsapproximately ninety scholarly publications, empirical social scientific research of this religiousmovement is surprisingly rare. Until now the most recent comprehensive study, The Trumpet ofProphecy (Oxford, Blackwell) by English sociologist James Beckford, dated back to 1975.Jehovah’s Witnesses in the United Kingdom are once again the subject in the book under review.

Holden’s basic framework is an examination of the response to modernisation from a varietyof theoretical angles. The most promising of these angles comes from Anthony Giddens, whoargues that individuals in modern societies can deal with their anxiety about secular changes bytrusting it to higher authorities. In addition, concepts of purity borrowed from anthropologistMary Douglas make clear that the Watch Tower Society, the umbrella organisation of theWitnesses, is part of the larger religious fundamentalist countercurrent, on the understanding thatits teachings relate to a strictly rational theological system. The qualitative methodology approachis Geertzian, so that Holden has studied the Witnesses from the perspective of the detachedanthropologist, suspending any judgments about the validity of their beliefs and practices. Thisconceptual foundation is the starting point for the main research questions: how does the WatchTower Society deal with the challenges of the modern world, and how do the Witnesses managetheir religious identity in an age of cultural fluidity (p. 2)? Preceded by a sketch of the movement’shistory and teachings, the phenomena of recruitment, conversion, and integration into the beliefsystem and community of the Witnesses figure prominently in no fewer than three chapters. Next,

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