The Nerves of Government: Models of Political Communication and Control . Karl W. Deutsch PDF

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964 A merktm A nlkropologist [66, 19641 and specimens as well as of the South African australopithecines. The views expressed are therefore especially interesting as they spring from personal experience rather than secondary sources. Heberer agrees with some workers that “Zinjanthropus” is indeed a ...

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964

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[66, 19641

and specimens as well as of the South African australopithecines. The views expressed are therefore especially interesting as they spring from personal experience rather than secondary sources. Heberer agrees with some workers that “Zinjanthropus” is indeed a Paranthroplrs and that “Telanthropus” appears clearly to be more advanced in the hominine direction than are any of the australopithecines. However it seems to me most improper for this author to use the italicized binomind (albeit in quotes) “Boiito leakeyi” for a specimen which has not yet been named and which he knows is being described by someone else. His continued use of “Australanthropus” for Austalofithecars is in the same spirit of disregard for both the letter and the spirit of zoological nomenclature. The size relationship of premolars in early and modern hominids is dealt with by von Koenigswald (in English), and his conclusion is that the australopithecines could not have been ancestral to man. The value of this contribution seems seriously affected by a methodological weakness. The author regards Awtralopitheclrs as directly ancestral to Parantkropus, and as the latter is least like hominines in the feature investigated, he concludes that australopithecines must have been diverging from the hominine line. Theoretically the two forms could belong (1) to different phyletic sequences, (2) to the same sequence in the order Australopilhecrrs-Paranlhropus, or (3) to the same sequence but in the reverse order to (2). The existing total of morphological and dating evidence indicates rather clearly that the relationship accepted by the author is by far the least likely of the three, yet the other possibilities are not even considered. Reversing the sequence would reverse his conclusion. T. Dale Stewart gives (in English) a welcome account of the Neanderthal cervical vertebrae from Shanidar. This effectively counters the long-held, but recently criticized, view stemming from Boule that the Neanderthal neck was short, massive, and ape-like. A brief essay by Vallois (in French) describes the isolated premolar from Ras-El-Kelb, which is regarded as being of Neanderthal type. Starck’s detailed study (in German) of the skull of the modern Madagascar lemur Pro#i’lhecw is in the classical tradition, carried out by making serial sections and enlarged wax reconstructions. This is one of a series of papers by this author investigating primate cranial morphology. W. L. Straus returns to a favorite topic, the mylohyoid groove, in his contribution (in English). The variation in this structure and its relations is now much clearer. One can only hope that Straus will now cease to write as though Broom and Robinson in 1949 based the generic status of ‘Telanthropus’ (officially sunk as long ago as January, 1961, by Robinson) on the nature of its mylohyoid groove. Zuckerman, Ashton, and Pearson discuss (in English) the styloid process in the primate skull; Remane considers (in German) some metrical features of the human deciduous dentition, and Osman Hill describes (in English) a young drill with lobster claw deformity. Finally Hediger and Zweifel present and discuss (in German) some photographs bearing on primate behavior, taken a t the Zurich zoo. This collection of papers, well printed on quality paper but paper bound, contains a large amount of very useful information and represents a solid-though perhaps not really exciting-contribution to primatology. As such it is very acceptable. As well, one applauds its purpose to honor Adolph H. Schultz.

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The Nerves of Gocvernmeitt: Models of Polilical Commuitication and Conlrol. KARLw. DEUTSCE. New York: The Free Press of Glencoe (Macmillan), 1963. xviii, 316 pp., appendix, chapter notes, index. $6.50. Reviewed by HERBERT S . LEWIS,Universily of Wiscoiisiii

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Starting from Norbert Wiener’s thesis that “society can only be understood through a study of the messages and the communication facilities which belong to it” (The Arman Use of Eocnran Beings, p. 16), Karl Deutsch has produced an ambitious and highly abstract work which attempts both to suggest a program for future political science research and to reformulate certain traditional philosophical political positions. Political systems, which Deutsch views as being charged with the task of steering and manipulating human behavior, must collect information about internal and external conditions, process and store it, and render decisions on the basis of it. Thus the author believes that the models of cybernetics, communication flows, and feedback processes (as developed through work with electronic guidance and communication systems) will prove to be suggestive, productive, and economical analogies for the qualitative and quantitative study of political systems. The first quarter of the book contains an interesting discussion of the nature and usefulness of analytical models in social science and brief critiques of such models as those of organism, mechanism, game theory, and the mathematical models of Rashevsky, Zipf, and others. Much of the rest of the book, however, consists of extended analogies as the author skips rapidly from machine to individual to society in order to compare phenomena (such as feedback, learning, goal-seeking, creativity, consciousness, will, integrity, autonomy, self-awareness) in one level of organization with their supposed parallels in the others. We wish the author had, instead, devoted more time to the problem of operationalizing some of his ideas, or a t least had focused on one real case for extensive analysis. Since he did not, we are left with some serious questions. Will the same model and equations be useful for relatively closed and tightly structured electronics systems produced by men to fulfill pre-set goals, and open, multi-functional, relatively loosely structured human societies? Can we ever effectively measure the messages received, contained, and recombined in the minds of rulers, officials, intelligence agencies, party bosses, subjects? How much work must first be done before we can map the (shifting) channels and flows of information in any complex society? I n Deutsch’s hands the analogy produces some interesting questions and insights, but it is difficult to see it as a workable model for the study of political systems.

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Social Research to Test Ideas: Sdecled Writings of Samuel A . Stouffer.SAMUELA. STOUPPER. Introduction by PAULF. LAZARSFELD. New York: The Free Press of Glencoe, 1962. xxxi, 314 pp., bibliography of Samuel A. Stouffer, figures, index, notes. $8.50.

Reviewed by DAVIDH. FRENCH, Reed College, and KATHRINE S. FRENCH, University o j Oregon Medical School

This is a valuable book. I t does, however, raise a not unfamiliar problem: to what extent should anthropologists attempt to keep abreast of writings of colleagues in neighboring fields. Stouffer’s collection of papers is for the most part confined to the particular sociological field of survey research-not an area in which there has been much overlap with anthropology. One of the most important functions of a reviewer in such a case is to try to provide guides by which other anthropologists can judge whether or not the book has any relevance to their work or interests. Samuel A. Stouffer was trained at the University of Chicago and studied in England with the statisticians Karl Pearson and R. A. Fisher. His career encompassed a period of thirty years, beginning in the early 1930’s. Stouffer’s role in the changes which took place in the field of social research during this period is reflected in the selection from his writings which makes up this book. He is most likely to be known to non-sociologists as the senior author of The Americait Soldier: S t d i e s in Social Psychology i n World Wur...