Symbolic Interactionism: Perspective and Method. by Herbert BlumerReview by: Clovis ShepherdSocial Forces, Vol. 48, No. 3 (Mar., 1970), pp. 436-437Published by: Oxford University PressStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2574696 .

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436 SOCIAL FORCES

stronger vertical and weaker horizontal bonds. The theocracy appears to be threatened by sec- ular political and economic interests held by Old Colonists. The issue of school standards, as most readers are aware, has repeatedly raised its head in Canada, Mexico, and Honduras.

Whether because of external influences or in- ternal inadequacies, the Old Colony is suffering from a bad case of secularism, intergenerational discord, conflict within and between settlements, and powerlessness. The future does not look bright: the Old Colony can become culturally and structurally assimilated, in which case it ceases to exist, or it can continue its strategic retreat from the world through migration, which despite its success as an adaptive technique, is costly to individuals and cannot be used indefinitely.

Despite some flaws, such as repeated quotations, occasional apparent contradictions and equivoca- tions, and a generally uninteresting style, the book is a carefully documented study, useful as source material in the study of identity maintenance ver- sus assimilation. It does not contribute greatly to an understanding of why assimilation of such groups does or does not occur. What is needed is a comparative study based on the individual case studies we already have available. (Redekop makes only one passing reference to the Hutter- ites; other Mennonite groups are likewise slighted.) Actually, given the between-settlement differences in the Old Colony described by the author, Redekop probably already has the ma- terials available for a much-needed investigation of this problem.

JOHN B. STEPHENSON

University of Kentucky

POPULATION AND SOCIETY IN NORWAY 1735-1865. By Michael Drake. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1969. 256 pp. $11.50.

Historical data derived from vital registration and census activities supplemented by an exam- ination of contemporary literature provide the basis for a "study in unusual detail and for an unusu- ally long period of the population developments of a pre-industrial western society." In his analysis of population growth and "the interplay of mar- riage, economic circumstances, social custom and fertility in the century before Norway's industrial revolution" Drake necessarily spends considerable time discussing problems of the population his- torian (Chapter 1), and adjustments made to im- prove the quality of his data (Appendix 1). Lit- erary sources also require the close scrutiny given them in Chapter 2.

Chapters 3 and 4 establish the nature of Nor- way's demographic condition during the 1735-1865 period. It is the familiar pre-industrial pattern of high and fluctuating mortality persisting until about 1815 when the cumulative effects of exten- sive cultivation of potatoes and use of smallpox vaccine helped stabilize mortality at a reduced level. Combined with a slight increase in fertility, this situation produced a significant increase in

the rate of growth. Additional evidence of struc- tural stability after 1815 was found in age-specific fertility, age at marriage, proportion married, and dependency ratios, suggesting that maintenance of living standards was possible only because land area under cultivation was significantly increased.

Chapters 5 and 6 investigate the ways in which institutional structure encouraged late marriage and conception as a means of coping with frequent harvest failures. The weakness of the analysis de- rives from the lack of adequate age data for the early years which forces the author into a cross- sectional analysis of 1801 data to explain a longi- tudinal process, i.e., variation in nuptiality and fertility as a response to economic change between 1735 and 1815. Data from four small areas do show interclass and regional differences consistent with his thesis that Norwegians acted in a "pru- dent" manner consistent with their individual eco- nomic circumstances.

The value of this study is enhanced by the in- clusion of annual estimates of population, births, deaths, marriages, and vital rates for the entire 130-year period. What is curious and disturbing, in view of the eight censuses conducted between 1769 and 1865, is the omission of the standard kind of detailed age-sex analyses one would ordinarily expect with this wealth of information. Standard techniques are available for dealing with suspected deficiencies in census data, and fuller utilization of these materials might have strengthened the anal- ysis considerably. Given the interesting demo- graphic stability during the latter part of this period, it is also disappointing not to find any consideration given to stable population theory.

If the mechanism underlying the demographic transition of Western populations is ever to be understood fully, more comprehensive studies of original data must be undertaken. The author is to be commended for his work in this direction and for whetting our appetites for further reports on the analysis of Norway's demographic ex- perience following 1865.

WARREN E. KALBACH

University of Toronto

SYMBOLIC INTERACTIONISM: PERSPECTIVE AND

METHOD. By Herbert Blumer. Englewood Cliffs: Prentice-Hall, 1969. 208 pp. $5.95.

Herbert Blumer is to be commended for gather- ing in one volume a selection of eleven of his pub- lished papers and for writing a new paper for this volume which presents his current views (and also constitutes about 30 percent of the book). This is the best current source for the symbolic interactionist perspective and its methodological implications. Blumer calls his perspective a set of "root images" or "basic ideas," rather than a theory, but throughout the papers he is addressing theoretical perspectives and methodological ap- proaches. What makes Blumer especially good reading is his consistent commitment to "mean- ings," to "self-interaction" or "self-indication," to constructing and guiding one's action (Mead's

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BOOK REVIEWS 437

heritage), and his unremitting criticism of most of current social psychological, and related psy- chological and sociological, theory and research. In the first chapter, The Methodological Position of Symbolic Interactionism Blumer provides an important service by distinguishing two modes of inquiry which he calls "Exploration" and "In- spection." Exploration "is the way by which a research scholar can form a close and compre- hensive acquaintance with a sphere of social life that is unfamiliar and hence unknown to him," and "is the means of developing and sharpening his inquiry so that his problem, his directions of inquiry, data, analytical relations, and interpreta- tions arise out of, and remain grounded in, the empirical life under study." Blumer makes a cogent argument that few research scholars en- gage in exploration and hence few have "a close and comprehensive acquaintance" with their sphere of study. Inspection is "an intensive focused exam- ination of the empirical content of whatever an- alytical elements are used for purposes of anal- ysis, and this same kind of examination of the empirical nature of the relations between such elements." In effect, Blumer charges most cur- rent theory and research as complex, intriguing, and impressive models, but empty of any essential understanding of human social life because few scholars employ a method similar to exploration though they may engage in inspection.

In discussing the nature of social life, Blumer speaks of the need to determine when a person defines a situation as an individual guiding his own action, as a member of a collectivity of individ- uals acting in concert, or as an agent acting on behalf of a group or organization (a constituency). The way he defines the situation must be known in order to understand adequately his behavior.

Several chapters deal with the issue of the relation between attitudes and behavior, with Blumer stressing the need to study the interpretive process by which a person interprets a situation and links his attitudes or other internal states to other persons and to action.

Throughout the book, Blumer returns again and again to his criticism of theory and research which emphasizes the analysis of relations between in- dependent and dependent variables with little or no attention to the process by which a person con- structs his behavior and carries out action. Today, when so many students and professionals are ask- ing increasingly for relevant study, meaningful re- search, and a concern for the application of social science to social life, Blumer's book should become a best-seller.

CLOVIS SHEPHERD

University of Cincinnati

PSYCHOLOGY AND SOCIOLOGY: AN INTEGRATED AP- PROACH TO UNDERSTANDING HUMAN BEHAVIOR.

By G. Kaluger and C. M. Unkovic. Saint Louis: Mosby, 1969. 404 pp. $9.50.

Psychologists and sociologists are not marked by a singular consensus as to what the proper sub-

ject matters or explanatory principles of their re- spective disciplines are. Pushed into a corner and. asked to give a simplistic overview, a psychologist might tell you that his discipline investigates in- dividual behavior; a sociologist, that his discipline studies group behavior. Both would probably ad- mit that there are some overlapping areas of con- cern and theoretical perspectives; some might even go so far as to suggest that the overlap might take the form of a continuum. All of this presents some formidable problems to anyone trying to integrate the two disciplines: problems of definition, inter- pretation, measurement, explanation, etc. Under- standably, these problems have forced most of the interdisciplinary work into an ambiguous middle area labeled social psychology.

The Kaluger and Unkovic text is more ambi- tious than a text in social psychology. Rather than carving out a subj ect area to which reasonably consistent explanations can be applied, the authors wish to cover a much broader range, from physi- ology to social institutions. Such a broad range of phenomena strains whatever explanatory par- adigms are brought to bear. But there are some options that can be exercised which will reduce this strain. One could select a set of postulates which has been utilized at a variety of levels of analysis (as exchange theorists have tried to do for interpersonal and interorganizational rela- tions), or one could take perspectives that at least have a possibility of being translatable (as social behaviorism and exchange). Alternatively, levels of analysis and problem areas could be broken up into blocks and discussed separately (as Roger Brown has done for social psychology), integra- tion being confined to problem areas within blocks. This latter strategy would presumably be chosen when the topics chosen for analysis are fairly dis- parate; the former, when the topics are less spread apart.

Kaluger and Unkovic have tried to form a con- ceptual base for part of their text, and block off the rest-a mixed strategy that doesn't succeed. Their first six chapters are devoted to psychosocial development-and it is here that you expect to find the differing levels of analysis being strung to- gether using overlapping concepts or postulates. Disappointingly, the thread that runs through these chapters is development: development of the self-concept, physiological development, life-span emotional changes, etc. Development is not a thread of sufficient conceptual power to tie these areas together in any meaningful fashion. This section might better have been condensed into two chapters, with the interrelationships among areas given more stress.

The rest of the text is divided into chapters, only a few of which could not be collapsed into more meaningful segments. There are separate chapters on culture and personality, and the in- dividual and society; separate chapters on be- havior disorders, social problems, therapy and re- adjustment, and social control and deviation, etc. In some cases, similar information, concepts and

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