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This article comments on several articles about the phenomena of war and peace in relation to sociology. Several authors recognize the threat posed to Marxism by the phenomenon of war. Weaker sociologists will take refuge in useful phrases, such as relative autonomy, uneven development and determination in the last instance. One of the legacies of Marxism is the division between base and superstructure, and its idea that political decisions are the effects, but not the causes of economic change. Class analysis comes to the fore only in two papers, one by John Mattausch, the other by Graham Day. Mattauch's unconcealed nostalgia for mass working class support sits unhappily with the fact that the majority of activists are state class radicals. Other papers are more interested in peace movements than in peace. They make no reference to the actual effect of such movements, for example, in contributing to the pre-war strategy of Adolph Hitler. Only one paper offers a definition of war. This occurs as a prelude to David Riches' discussion of the peaceful Eskimos. War, according to Riches, is the authorized employment of physical force against other persons, as means by which groups competing for control of public resources and benefits attempt to influence the outcome of the competition in their favor.

Reviews the book "Macro-Sociological Theory: Perspectives on Sociological Theory," vol. 1, edited by S. N. Eisenstadt and H. J. Helle.

Reviews the book "Literary Criticism and Sociology: Yearbook of Comparative Criticism, Vol. V," edited by Joseph Strelka.

Reviews the book "The Politics of Field Research: Sociology Beyong Enlightenment," edited by Jaber F. Gubrium and David Silverman.

Any collection of papers purporting to set out new directions for a discipline, like sociology, whose fundamental orientations are humanist, might reasonably be expected to contain within it items that may themselves be collected into one of two principal categories. The first is of work that brings radically into question existing ontological and, hence, epistemological bases of the discipline; the second, of work that, developing from a fundamental, though not an unquestioning, acceptance of those bases, seeks to modify them in the light of its experiential practice in their terms. Work of both kinds requires the courage and rigour of a strong and serious commitment to sustain sociology as a discipline through questioning thoughtfully its basic tenets in relation to the lived, social experience both of those who conduct it and of those whose conduct is its topic. Work in the second category can be too easily confused, however, with that of a third—the scholarship of the disciplinary cartographer, whose work is the recording and reporting upon the work of others in his field. Such work informs those in search of the new of the names and appearances of the epistemological territories that they are leaving behind, and of the conceptual topography of some of the issues they may expect to have to negotiate during their journey. As such, and if it is thorough, it can be valuable. But it is too often an indication of unreflective neophilia amongst sociologists than of new directions in sociology. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Reviews several books on sociology. "Society," by David Frisby and Derek Sayer; "The Ethnomethodologists," by Wes Sharrock and Bob Anderson; "Beliefs and Ideology," by Kenneth Thompson; "Equality," by Bryan S. Turner.

Reviews two books on sociology. "Marital Violence," edited by Norman Johnson; "The Family, Politics and Social Theory," by D. H. J. Morgan.

Reviews the book "Sociology and the Demystification of the Modern World," by John Rex.

Reviews the book "Beyond the Sociology of Development: Economy and Society in Latin American and Africa," edited by Ivar Oxaal, Tony Barnett and David Booth.

Reviews the book "Policing by the Public," by Joan Shapland and Jon Vagg.

Reviews the books "Work, Unemployment, and Leisure," by Rosemary Deem and "Youth Unemployment in the 1980s: Its Psychological Effects" by Michael H. Banks and Philip Ullah.

Reviews the book "Between Literature and Science: The Rise of Sociology," by Wolf Lepenies.

Reviews the book "Conservatism: A Contribution to the Sociology of Knowledge," by Karl Mannheim.

Reviews the book "Social Issues in British Society," by Gerry Popplestone.

Reviews the book "The Positivist Dispute in German Sociology," by T. W. Adorno, et al.

Reviews the book "On the Beginning of Social Inquiry," by Peter McHugh, Stanley Raffel, Daniel C. Foss and Alan F. Blum.

Reviews two volumes of the book "Handbuch der empirischen Sozialforschung," edited by René König, vol.1, "Geschichte und Grundprobleme der empirischen Sozialforschung," vol.2, "Grundlegende Methodern und Techniken der empirischen Sozialforschung."

Reviews two books on sociology by John Keane. "Democracy and Civil Society"; "Civil Society and the State."

This section presents the list of books reviewed in the December 1989 issue of the British Journal of Sociology.

Reviews the book "The Good Society and the Inner World: Psychoanalysis, Politics and Culture," by Michael Rustin.

Reviews the book "Sociological Theory, Religion and Collective Action," by Roy Wallis and Steve Bruce.

Reviews several books on sociology. "Western Marxism," by J. G. Merquior; "Emancipation and Consciousness," by Erica Sherover-Marcuse; "Marxism and Morality," by Steven Lukes.

Reviews the book "La Formation d'une Pensée Sociologique: la Société Polonaise de l'Entredeux-guerres," by Janina Markiewicz-Lagneau.

Reviews the book "The Sociology of Karl Mannheim," by Gunter W. Remmling.

Reviews the book "Structural Analysis in Contemporary Social Thought: A Comparison of the Theories of Claude Lévi-Strauss and Louis Althusser," by Miriam Glucksmann Routledge and Kegan Paul.

Reviews the book "Positivism and Sociology," edited by Anthony Giddens.

Reviews the book "Handbook of Soviet Social Science Data," edited by Ellen Mickiewicz.

Reviews the book "Selected Writings," by Jean Baudrillard.

Reviews the book "Key Variables in Social Investigation," edited by Robert Burgess.

Reviews the book "Neglect and Betrayal: War and Violence in Modern Sociology," by David Marsland.

Reviews the book "Approaches to Sociology: An Introduction to Major Trends in British Sociology," edited by John Rex.