Book Reviews 1067

devious, and although it contains no “data,” it presents lucidly the newer theoretical and metaphysical position concerning human cognitive processes. With the digital computer and servomechanism as inspiration, this position offers a set of concepts (Image, Plan, TOTE, etc.) with which to analyze linguistic and other data. It is writ- ten in the psychologist’s jargon, but the entities and relations to which this jargon re- fers are known, by other terms, to anthropologists. This reviewer accordingly hopes that Plans and the Structure o j Behavior will be widely read by his colleagues.

Freedom and Cullure. DOROTHY LEE. (A Spectrum Book.) Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey: Prentice-Hall, Inc., 1959. vii, 179 pp., bibliography, index. $1.95 (paper- bound).

Reviewed by DAVID FRENCH, Reed College

The title of this selection of essays by Dorothy Lee reflects the two major facets of her writing: a concern with human problems and a utilization of a broad concept of cul- ture to describe and highlight human variability.

Anthropologists are likely to be familiar with the reprinted papers that discuss language and culture and reality. Even those who do not always agree with Dr. Lee may have used one or more of the following in their teaching: “Being and Value in a Primitive Culture,” “Linguistic Reflection of Wintu Thought,” “The Conception of the Self among the Wintu Indians,” and the paper on lineal and nonlineal codifications of reality. In view of the scattered and obscure sources from which they were reprinted, very few anthropologists will ever have seen her essays that employ anthropological data to explore questions of individual autonomy, the joy of participation, equality of opportunity, freedom, responsibility, and other matters likely to concern us more as citizens than as scholars and scientists. In fact, the book is an appropriate one for a thoughtful person of any occupation who has these concerns.

Except for her Wintu fieldwork and her early experience in Greece, Dr. Lee relies on the writings of others. These days one often hears of “Method” actors, who live their parts; she is a “Method” anthropologist, as can be seen from her own description of the later stages of her work on a new culture:

Eventually, I plunged into the experience of another culture, until I found myself liking what the members of the other society liked, frightened by what gave them fear, grieved by their sor- rows, delighted in the situations which filled them with satisfaction and joy; and until their categories seemed natural and right, and my own rigid and misleading. In fact, I sometimes lost myself in the way of life of the society I was studying until my children complained that, after all, they were not Trobrianders. . . . (p. 4).

Having insights is laudable; one is usually convinced by a given essay-and de- lighted with it as well. Furthermore, there is no doubt about Dr. Lee’s diligence in at- tempting to surmount presuppositions derived from her own culture. As with certain writings of Ruth Benedict, however, the reader may have no way of knowing whether a particular passage really contains a valid insight or not. She does not document her writings extensively; she does not present all of her reasoning. To illustrate: in more than one paper, she describes certain non-European peoples as having a profound respect for the integrity or worth of every individual in their group. Consequently, one person does not impose his will upon another; even children are expected to make their own choices in their own way. How can we know, however, that the “respect” for others is not simply indifference to their choices? The essays do not enable one to settle such a question.

Dr. Lee regards differing cultures as differing codifications of reality: “ . . . culture

1068 American Anthropologist [62, 19601

is a symbolic system which transforms the physical reality, what is there, into experi- enced reality. I t follows from this assumption that the universe as I know it or imagine it in the Western world is different from the universe of the Tikopia, in Polynesia. I t follows, also, that I feel differently about what I see” (p. 1).

Dr. Lee’s manner of using linguistic materials has meant that she is sometimes grouped with Benjamin Whorf as a proponent of linguistic determination of behavior. She is closer to being a cultural determinist: language is for her an aspect of culture in which it is frequently easy to demonstrate relationships with other behavior. Her cul- tural determination is not like the consistent culturology of Leslie White in that indi- viduals are sometimes seen as able to make choices within a wide range. Needs, and other biological or psychological explanations, are avoided, however. Dr. Lee says, “I believe that it is value, not a series of needs, which is a t the basis of human behavior”

She does not attempt to explain how differences in values or cultures arise. In not doing so, she runs the same risk of circularity that others do when they hold that a list of needs is basic in behavior. Consequently, we can best understand Dr. Lee as provid- ing us with vivid descriptions, not explanutions, of varying ways of life.

There is only one Dorothy Lee, and we anthropologists already know her unique interests and abilities. We will buy the book, and use it in a variety of ways-because it includes the best-known of her essays. It is fortunate that they are now available.

ETHNOLOGY

Robert H . Lowie, Ethnologist: A Personal Record. ROBERT H. LOWIE. Berkeley: Univer-

Reviewed by D. B. SHIMKIN, University ofIllinois

In the last days of his life, Professor Lowie completed his intellectual autobiography. This, his final contribution, enhances the value of his field studies in North America and in Germany by defining the physical circumstances of his work and by calibrating its human instruments, himself included. I t undertakes, moreover, the difficult and delicate task of self-evaluation, both of his books and of his life’s work as a whole. And it gives glimpses of a complex, rich, and deeply emotional personality, abundant in humor and sympathy, in hurt and indignation, in idealism and self-discipline. The book is composite in style as well; anecdotes, didactic summaries, and frank expres- sions of attitude and belief combine to make its points.

Such a book is difficult to review. In justice to the author, one must follow his changing mood and frame of reference. What canons of judgment should be used in assessing so many-sided a book? I t partakes of the technical monograph, of light litera- ture, and of psychological documentation. If personal recollections and the written record fail to agree, as in some of the self-evaluations, should one altogether deny sub- jective validity? Above all, can one set aside years of admiration and friendship and undertake that dispassionate weighing of this book which Robert Lowie would have wished?

I shall try, beginning with Professor Lowie’s North American field work, to which over half the volume (pp. 1-105) is devoted. Methodalogically, these chapters teach that field ethnology is a human interaction in which the casual and unexpected may contribute insights as valuable as those wrested by formal inquiry. In detail, they show the limitations posed by pioneering conditions, by the need for hurried data-salvage on many changing cultures, and by the author’s initial citified naivete. They also bring out the crucial importance, for ethnographic success, of the characteristics of inter-

(P. 72) .

sity of California, 1959. xii, 198 pp., frontispiece, 23 photographs. $5.00.