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Reviews the book "Narrow Roads to Gene Land: The Collected Papers of W. D. Hamilton," vol. 1, "The Evolution of Social Behaviour," by W.D. Hamilton.

Reviews two books on probation. "Punishment, Custody and the Community," edited by Huw Rees and Eryl Hall Williams; "Probation: Politics, Policy and Practice," by Tim May.

Reviews the book "Structures of Power and Constraint: Papers in Honor of Peter M. Blau," edited by Craig Calhourn, Marshall W. Meyer and W. Richard Scott.

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 "Ireland North and South: Perspectives From Social Science," edited by Anthony F. Heath, Richard Breen and Christopher T. Whelan.

Reviews the book "Women and Italy: Essays on Gender, Culture and History," edited by Zygmunt G. Baranski and Shirley W. Vinall.

This paper argues that Piketty's book should not simply be seen as that of an economist, but that it contains significant resources for sociologists to draw upon. These are firstly, this approach to social science and his use of visualizations which chime closely with recent claims about the power of description. Secondly I consider his conceptualization of time and history - which in rebutting epochal arguments about the speed of contemporary change allows for a much better appreciation of the 'long durée'; and finally his conceptualization of social classes and privilege through his elaboration of a sociology of accumulation and inheritance. In all these ways, Piketty's work assists in developing an account of elites and wealth which should be highly productive for future sociology. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Piketty's Capital (2014) primarily describes and analyses changes in the distribution of wealth and annual incomes. This paper focuses on his policy proposals that make up Part Four of the book. Piketty defends the 'social state' but he discusses it largely in terms of distribution and redistribution between tax units. This neglects the important role of social policy in promoting recognition and redistribution of income and opportunities that is related to gender, race, disability and sexual orientation. Nor does Piketty consider inequalities in health which effect life-time incomes, nor the impact of housing policies on house prices and the distribution of wealth. It is argued that Piketty's approach to social security is simplistic and plays down the complexity of competing policy goals. On taxation, Piketty defends progressive taxation and proposes a global capital levy. The latter proposal runs into formidable problems in seeking global taxation in a world of nation states. Rather than seeking a policy that is, for the foreseeable future, wholly politically impractical, a case is made for less idealistic but more practical and urgent tax coordination between nations to address the widespread avoidance of taxation that large corporations and the very wealthy are now permitted - taxation on which the future of the social state depends. The importance of human and social capital, which are largely set aside by Piketty, are discussed. Finally,it is argued that his approach to policy is to describe trends and propose amelioration of growing inequality rather than to identify causes of the trends and propose policies that might address the causes. Nevertheless, the importance of his work in bringing issues of inequality to the fore, especially among economists, is recognized and applauded. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Reviews the book "Reworking Class," edited by John Hall.

Reviews the book "Gender Equity: An Integrated Theory of Stability and Change," by Janet Saltzman Chafetz.

Reviews the book "Agency and Organization: Towards an Organizational Theory of Society," Göran Ahrne.

Reviews the book "Market Killing: What the Free Market Does and What Social Scientists Can Do About It,' edited by Greg Philo and David Miller.

Reviews three books on sociology. "Societal Development: Five Approaches With conclusions From Comparative Analysis," by Szymon Chodak; "The Political Economy of Development: Theoretical and Empirical Contributions," edited by Norman T. Uphoff and Warren F. Ilchman; "Sociology and Development," edited by Emmanuel de Kadt and Gavin Williams.

Reviews the book "Music and Society: the Later Writings of Paul Honigsheim," edited by K. Peter Etzkorn.

Reviews the book "Network Analysis: Studies in Human Interaction," edited by Jeremy Boissevain and J. Clyde Mitchell.

Reviews two books about technology. "The Process of Technological Change," by Jon Clark, Ian McLoughlin, Howard Rose and Robin King; "New Technology and the Labour Process," by David Knights and Hugh Willmott.

Reviews two books on religion. "Changing Perspectives in the Scientific Study of Religion," edited by Allan W. Eister; "The Seduction of the Spirit: The Use and Misuse of the People's Religion," by Harvey Cox.

Reviews two books on sociology. "Sociological Review Monograph 32. Power Action and Belief: A New Sociology of Knowledge?" edited by John Law; "Power and Knowledge: Anthropological and Sociological Approaches: Proceedings of a Conference Held at the University of St Andrews in December 1982," edited by Richard Fardon.

Reviews the book "Interpreting the Past, Understanding the Present," edited by Stephen Kendrick, Pat Straw and David McCrone.

Reviews the book "Social Theory for Action: How Individuals and Organizations Learn to Change," by William Foote Whyte.

Reviews the book "Consciousness and the Urban Experience: Studies in the History and Theory of Capitalist Urbanisation," by David Harvey.

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.

The article reviews the book "Elites and Power in British Society," edited by Philip Stanworth and Anthony Giddens.

Reviews the book "Social Exchange Theory," by Peter Ekeh.

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

Reviews the book "Victims of Crime--A New Deal?," edited by M. Maguire and J. Pointing.

Reviews the book "Sociometric Research," vol. 1 and 2, edited by William E. Saris and Irmtraud N. Gallofer.

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]

The article reviews the book "A Critical Woman: Barbara Wootton, Social Science, and Public Policy in the Twentieth Century," by Ann Oakley.

Reviews the book "Methods of Life Course Research: Qualitative and Quantitative Approaches," edited by Janet Z. Giele and Glen H. Elder.

Reviews the book "Religion, Modernity and Postmodernity," edited by Pal Heelas.

Reviews the book "Gender, Equality and Welfare States," by Diane Sainsbury.

Reviews the book "Ideas About Illness: An Intellectual and Political History of Medical Sociology," by Uta Gerhardt.

Reviews the book "Of Rule and Revenue," by Margaret Levi.

Reviews the book "Privatisation and the Penal System: The American Experience and the Debate in Britain," by Mick Ryan and Tony Ward.

Reviews the book "The State and Instability in the South," edited by Caroline Thomas and Paikiasothy Saravanamuttu.

Reviews the book "Development of Class Structure in Eastern Europe: Poland and Her Southern Neighbours, by Aleksander Gella.

Reviews the book "State, Capital and Labour: Changing Patterns of Power and Dependence," by Gill Ursell and Paul Blyton.

Reviews the book "Democracy and the Welfare State," edited by Amy Gutmann.

Reviews the book "Sociometric Research, Vol. 1. Data Collection and Scaling: Vol. 2. Data Analysis," edited by Willem E. Saris and Irmtraud N. Gallofer.

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 the book "Sexuality," by Jeffrey Weekes.

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 "Capitalism and Social Democracy," by Adam Przeworski.

The article reviews the book "Contemporary Research in the Sociology of Education," edited by John Eggleston.

The article reviews the book "Social Psychology for Sociologists," edited by David Field.

Reviews the book "Knowledge, Education and Cultural Change," by edited by Richard Brown.

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

Reviews the book "Politics, a Work in Constructive Social Theory," by Roberto M. Unger.