Farmers and Workers in American Politics. BY STUART A. RICE, PH.D. "Studies in History, Economics, and Public Law,” Vol. CXIII, No. 2. New York: Columbia University, 1924. Pp. 231. $2.50. "The problem with which the politician and the sociologist are concerned is to determine the kind of potential alignments which now exist spontaneously among the voters, regardless of party, with respect to various types of issues" (p. 30). Dr. Rice's contribution to this large problem is an appraisal of farmers and workers, and his conclusion is that they are likely to disagree upon issues which arise from prejudice and tradition such as prohibition, sex, gambling, and the regulation of personal conduct generally-but that agreement is possible upon issues which involve rational calculation of interests. His conclusion may or may not be important, but his technique marks a substantial advance. He develops an index of cohesion within each group and an index of likeness between any two groups (pp. 186 ff.), and these are likely to prove helpful additions to the sociologist's tool box. He goes on to suggest the hypothesis of political culture areas, stressing the probability that the general laws which govern the diffusion of cultural elements apply to types of opinion as well, and that an "agitator" may "infect" a discontented group with a definite doctrine which spreads from the central point over adjacent and receptive areas (pp. 177 ff.). The book is a very creditable scientific achievement. UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO HAROLD D. LASSWELL Leaves from a Russian Diary. BY PITIRIM SOROKIN. New York: Religion in Russia under the Soviets. BY RICHARD J. COOKE. New Revolution took this sociological professor of socialist propensities, Sorokin, made him secretary to Kerensky in spite of his sententious forebodings, toppled him from power, hunted him, imprisoned him, banished him, disillusioned and embittered him. The girondist is a definite revolutionary type, and the present diary, while it supplies a relevant case study for scientific purposes, omits the intimate facts and the early autobio graphical material which is indispensable to accurate generalization. There is too much sophistication about the writer to render the narrative naïve, and not enough ruthless skill in self-revelation to make it profound. His observations upon the people around him are deformed by the very mélange of passion, fact, rumor, and polemic which reveals so much about the witness. Bishop Cooke, of the Methodist church, has written "solely that those who are interested in the welfare of Christ's Kingdom among the nations might have some clear conception of the conflict between atheism and religion in Russia." The result is a valuable specimen for the student of ecclesiastical propaganda. Miss Blanc has prepared a well-documented survey of co-operation in Russia, which began in the sixties and seventies as the imported toy of well-meaning intellectuals, grew steadily prior to 1914, expanded phenomenally in war time, clashed disastrously with the Bolsheviki in 1919, and recovered in 1921. The facts are here for a sound explanation of the greatest achievement of non-official initiative in Russia. HAROLD D. LASSWELL UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO Matrimony Minus Maternity. By M. H. SEXTON. New York: Devin-Adair Co., 1922. Pp. vii+271. $2.00. Sex and Dreams: The Language of Dreams. By WILLIAM STEKEL, M.D. (Vienna). Authorized translation by JAMES S. VAN TESLAAR, M.D. Boston: Richard G. Badger, 1922. Pp. 322. $6.00. Sex and Common Sense. By A. MAUDE ROYDEN, Preacher at the Guildhouse, Eccleston Square, S. W. I. New York: G. P. Putnam's Sons, 1922. Pp. xviii+211. $2.50. The Laws of Sex. BY EDITH HOUGHTON HOOKER. Boston: Richard G. Badger, 1921. Pp. 373. $5.00. Little Essays of Love and Virtue. BY HAVELOCK ELLIS. New York: George H. Doran, 1922. Pp. 187. $1.50. Biology of Sex: For Parents and Teachers (Revised). By T. W. GALLOWAY, PH.D. New York: D. C. Heath & Co., 1922. Pp. xiii+149. $1.24. Sexton's book is a hodge-podge of material, incoherent in purpose and with evident attempts to be sensational in method. Claiming as its object a general attack upon all forms of sex immorality, the book more than fulfils the author's prophecy: "In the following pages the reader will see that the steed of thought swings along the human highway, check free." For if one gets nowhere in the flow of words, one at least discovers how wildly the mind can gallop when the emotions set the pace. According to Stekel, dreams are a form of symbolism. They express wishes, including moral wishes, though not wishes exclusively. Some dreams reflect somatic conditions. Freud deserves credit for opening up the meaning of dreams as an agent for explaining mental life, but his view of dreams as merely wishes was one-sided. Stekel demonstrates his scheme of dream interpretation by analysis of various dreams, making liberal use of "the well-known dream symbolism." "Water," for example, "always stands for a reference to birth" (p. 97). Farther on, however, we find this rigid attitude modified: "There are no fixed symbols, and under certain circumstances a symbol may mean something else" (p. 289). The book is largely a collection of dreams followed by the author's analyses, which for the most part we are expected to accept as correct interpretations on his assertion. The reader, if at all critical, naturally wonders why human nature should dream only of sex matters; does sleep turn all wishes into sex desires, or is it rather that the interpreter must find a sex significance or nothing? Sex and Common Sense is a conventional and moralizing presentation of the problems of sex control in an interesting form and with suggestions of tolerance; it reveals little scientific background for the discussion of problems of sex. The Laws of Sex is a lengthy and somewhat padded collection of material concerning marriage, prostitution, venereal disease, and sex education. At times dogma, it is nevertheless a convincing plea for a more vigorous attack upon the prevention of venereal disease. The treatment of the sex interests of children and the wholesome parental approach to related problems is especially useful (pp. 319-30). The book contains some case histories valuable for the sociologists. Ellis presents in Little Essays of Love and Virtue brief statements of points of view regarding sex, marriage, and family life, either expressed or implied in his larger Studies in the Psychology of Sex. He writes with the hope that his essays will fall into the hands of adolescent youth and prove useful. The spirit of the discussions is revealed in the following sentences: "Sublimation, we see again and again, is limited, and the best developments of the spiritual life are not likely to come about by the rigid attempt to obtain a complete transmutation of sexual energy." "No doubt, however, marriage and the home will undergo modifications which will tend to make these ancient institutions a little more flexible and to permit a greater degree of variation to meet special circumstances." The book is thought-provoking, especially for the sociologists, who will be most concerned with the social implications of this fruitage of a lifetime of study of social hygiene. Galloway's Biology of Sex is a clear, concise presentation of the need, method, and material of wholesome sex instruction, based upon the belief that the mental, social, and moral control of the sex impulses is at present one of the most important of society's tasks. BOSTON UNIVERSITY ERNEST R. GROVES The Russian Bolshevik Revolution. By EDWARD Alsworth Ross. New York: The Century Co., 1921. Pp. 302. $3.00. The Revival of Marxism. BY J. SHIELD NICHOLSON. New York: E. P. Dutton & Co., 1921. Pp. 145. $2.25. The New Policies of Soviet Russia. Chicago: Charles H. Kerr & Co. Pp. 127. The Principles of Revolution. By C. DELISLE BURNS. New York: Oxford University Press, 1921. Pp. 155. $1.75. In his volume Mr. Ross has produced an immensely readable, if somewhat journalistic, study of the Russian Bolshevik Revolution. The book, being dedicated to "intelligent Americans who are tired of being victims of propaganda about Russia," represents an honest but often ineffectual effort to reach the truth, and is happily free from the customary ritual of exorcisms which has become so necessary a feature of books on Russia. The materials of the book are taken from newspapers, memoirs, private letters, and occasionally public documents, just the sort of material which is available to most newspaper correspondents. The book, therefore, does not mark any radical departure from the ways of the correspondent. Of indubitable value at the time of its publication, four years ago, it is largely antiquated today. The book gives the impression of hasty composition; newspaper reports seem hurriedly plastered together. There is no nice and accurate measure of the decisive, moving forces that are at work during the Revolution. Mr. Ross gives the impression of a spontaneous, almost leaderless revolution, yet Bruce Lockhart's excellent study has revealed that in no modern revolution is leadership so clearly demonstrable as in the Russian Revolution. The volume by Nicholson on The Revival of Marxism is the work of an excited octogenarian professor of the University of Edinburgh who wishes to answer the post-war revival of Marxism with a fresh refutation. With the air of giving the reader carmina prius non audita, he rams in open doors and repeats all the arguments which orthodox economists have ever made against the Marxian dogma. A singularly futile book. The New Policies of Soviet Russia is an invaluable source book on the second phase of the Bolshevik Revolution. It is a reprint of pamphlets by Lenin, Bukharin, and Rutgers. The most important of the three is the pamphlet by Lenin on The Meaning of the Agricultural Tax, in which he unfolds his argument in favor of state-capitalism. It is one of the most characteristic productions of Lenin's masterly revolutionary logic. Burns' The Principles of Revolution is a remarkably stimulating book, written with a multiple purpose. It is in part a study in the history of revolutionary social philosophy, in part a study in the revolutionary process, and lastly it is written with the unexpressed but still unmistakable desire to prepare the way for the ideal revolution of the future. Proceeding on the supposition that "only dead men know the tunes the live world dances to," he singles out the great revolutionary prophets of modern times (Rousseau, Karl Marx, Mazzini, William Morris, Leo Tolstoy) for an admirably objective analysis of the type of ideals which promote revolution. In the second part of the book he endeavors to define revolution. He calls it a sudden and radical change in social habits and social organization. He contributes nothing new to the theory of the objective revolutionary process, for he is primarily interested in revolutions as in part the effects of social idealism. UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO WALTER L. DORN Unemployment Relief in Great Britain. A Study in State Socialism. Hart Schaffner & Marx Prize Essay XXXVIII. BY FELIX MORLEY. Boston and New York: Houghton Mifflin Co., 1924. Pp. i+203. $2.00. Students of unemployment relief are indebted to Mr. Morley for a clear and concise presentation of the British plans. It is to be regretted that Mr. Morley did not stop at this point. His conclusions are not sound; they do not follow upon the facts. The conclusions reached are twofold: state insurance against unem |