Book Review: On the Importance of Books,Reviews,and Humanist Sociology

Love and Book Affairs

I grew up as the son of a teacher and a calligrapher in a home in which the above-mentioned quotation hung, matted, and framed, prominently displayed for all to see. I had no chance. My parents’ love affair with the written word grabbed me too. That affection/infection, coupled with the relative ease of accessibility to used books in the many local bookstores in my city (these were pre-Amazon days), made books and bookshelves the preferred decor and accouterment of my childhood home. But aside from such a romantic remembrance of years gone by, there were also many times that I wished they did not abide so closely to Erasmus’ mantra. I loved Legos and model trains too.

Years later, I am still madly in love with books. I read them. I reread them. I review them. And I even write them. (Who would believe that would come to pass as a train- and Lego-obsessed, nine-year-old?!) Concerning the intersection of books and the sociological enterprise, I fancy myself a keeper of the flame. I often hear that both books and “reading culture” are under assault and that I must defend the sacred order from the enemy at the gates. For instance, Neil Postman, in Amusing Ourselves to Death (1985), warned of the societal consequences of a falloff in reading due to the television turn. In 2008, the National Endowment of the Arts (NEA) lamented the demise of American leisure reading (a sequel to their 2004 report “Reading at Risk”). In 2014, Alan Singer argued in “Common Core and the Death of Reading” that “students may learn skills, but they do not learn to love reading or to really understand sophisticated written material.” Death abounds, it seems.

But there is no consensus on how this transience occurs, or whether our reading mortality rates are, in fact, rising. Some bemoan the rise of the big-box bookstores that kill off the “mom and pop” shops. On the other hand, many a humanist decries the lack of a public reading culture that drives those same Barnes & Noble and Borders to shutter their storefronts and retreat to the online promotion of bourgeoisie bohemian reading kitsch (anyone for a US$200 earth-friendly, hypoallergenic, Genetically Modified Organism-free bamboo lap desk?). But others, such as Ursula Le Guin (2008:34) finds that reading is not under decline, but that “social reading”—what we do in order to have “nonthreatening, unloaded, sociable conversations”—is waning. And Nancy Kaplan (2007) took the aforementioned NEA report to task for ironically misreading their data, concluding that the NEA has only “one particular romanticized notion of reading” that is “both naive and needlessly limiting.”

From my own perch in the ivory tower, completing forces seem at play, that is, the increasing expectations of “publish and perish” in a neoliberal economy force assistant professors to spill much ink in their pursuit of tome qua tenure. Concurrently, the simultaneous attack on tenure in the era of the adjunct threatens to undermine the scholarly production of knowledge in article, chapter, and book form. The turn to e-books and e-readers means an entire library can easily travel in one’s hand. Yet the ease of that digital transportation also generates questions about who owns the books and for how long and certainly inhibits the utility and (dare I say) the sentimentality of gifting an underlined, margin-filled, or autographed copy of a used book to a dear friend. And the behemoth of journal publication of articles (and book reviews!) relies on a predatory relationship in which the scholarly word (the production of knowledge via writing, quality control via reviewing, and refinement via editing) is achieved through stolen labor whose very end product is stored behind exorbitant pay walls where even if people wanted to read, they cannot afford to do so because there is no money left for food, clothes, or journal subscriptions.

In the midst of that cacophony, as the new book review editor for Humanity & Society (HAS), I stake the claim that it is important to read books. The written and bound word may not serve as the only mode by which knowledge is conveyed, but as David Pearson contends in Books as History: The Importance of Books Beyond Their Texts (2008), it is not only the words within, but that books as cultural objects represent, “our enormous heritage of the printed and written word, bequeathed to us over generations” (p. 15) in which the reader can “write your thoughts in the margins of this copy—if it is yours to write in—and turn it into a unique object for posterity” (p. 183). And if “writing,” as Nikki Giovanni (1995:14) once penned, “is a conversation with reading; a dialogue with thinking,” then the reading and writing about reading and writing that constitutes a “book review” is thus a multivocal chorus of thoughts—sometimes beautifully harmonious and also occasionally delicious in discordant chaos.

Reframing the Margins of the Book Review

Established and noted book review sections and journals such as Contemporary Sociology (ASA), International Sociology Reviews (ISA), or the newly formed Ethnic and Racial Studies Review have one thing in common, that is, they provoke academic discussion, debate, and conversation that resides in the “sweet spot” between two excessive academic tendencies. On one end, there is polite implication and suggestion, without declaration or insistence. This kind of timid academic speech among book reviews relies on a limp hedging in the form of “sort of” this, “kind of” that, which together reflect a lack of conviction and standpoint. On the other hand, academic critique can demonstrate hubris in modes most vicious and personal and often devolves into little more than a grandstand for one’s own disciplinary paradigm rather than a critical gauge of the merits of the object of review.

To navigate this Scylla and Charybdis of the book review section, I will take a slightly different tack than in years’ past. First, I will arrange book reviews by theme. The three (or more, depending on page space) books reviewed in each issue will be bound by a common thread central to the humanist sociological tradition to promote peace, equality, and social justice. Whether environmentalism, antiracism, feminism, labor rights, or any other topic within the humanistic purview, it is my aim that these books and their attendant reviews shall implicitly “speak” to one another as though brought together for an abbreviated symposium. I aim to review a wide array of texts, from both academics and activists, and published by a range of top presses such as Oxford University Press and Harvard University Press to “alternative” presses known for giving voice to those on the underside of modernity, such as South End Press, Pluto Press, or Haymarket Books.

Second, I will pen a short preface to each issue’s book reviews. This introduction shall serve to briefly introduce the reader to recent debates and issues in the field represented by the reviews in that issue. Such a preface will occasionally draw attention to forgotten classics that I will argue should be revived as well as evaluations of other books of which we should be aware, given their antisociological attempt to rationalize and legitimate inequality. It is my hope that such thematic complementarity and context shall serve as an added bonus to any searching reader.

Teaching Humanist Sociology: New Books on Gender, Class, and Race

In this, my first, installment as book review editor, I take a bit of license. Instead of three different reviewers’ account of three new books, I have identified three books that align with this special issue on teaching—guest edited by Corey Dolgon, Daina Harvey, and Jim Pennell. Toward that end, I offer subsequently three recent books that will serve as excellent classroom resources toward teaching the “holy trinity” of sociology in general and humanist sociology in particular—the topics of gender, class, and, race.

Karpowitz, Christopher F. and Tali Mendelberg. 2014. The Silent Sex: Gender, Deliberation, and Institutions. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. 450 pp. US$35.00 (paperback). ISBN 978-0-691-15976-8.

The title (The Silent Sex) draws from Simone de Beauvoir’s classic, The Second Sex (originally published in 1949). de Beauvoir’s [1949] 1971 book is often hailed as one of the first to directly tackle the problem of women’s lower status in society. Although de jure equality has been reached in some areas, Karpowitz and Mendelberg argue that de facto gender equality is elusive at best. In specific, they target the interactive social arena of deliberative participation in which women are often afforded less time than men and, when heard, are given less consideration than their male counterparts. Key to Karpowitz and Mendelberg’s argument is that women’s presence and voice are not the same thing. Breaking through the glass ceiling is important, but such victories are significantly and literally muted when women’s voices are not afforded equal time and consideration.

The authors rightly take on a rising tide of “post-sexism” voices that would argue that “women’s liberation” and “feminism” have accomplished their goals and that the battle is won. In reviewing some recent research on gender inequality, which concluded, “gender inequality is not a big problem” (p. 6) due to a lack of formal and overt discrimination, Karpowitz and Mendelberg use an array of both naturally occurring data and controlled experiments that randomly vary the conditions of discussion and objects of scrutiny, using many different groups and scenarios to show conclusively that “gender inequality is deep and pervasive despite the steps commonly assumed to guard against it” (p. 6). Simply put, the lack of overt discrimination does not equal the presence of justice and equality.

This book is chocked full of useful and clear theorizing, a thorough overview of the literature in several social science disciplines, a bevy of convincing empirical research, and concludes with thought-provoking policy recommendations. For example, in regard to small group settings (such as five people), their research shows that the gender composition affects both the amount of time women speak and the types of issues discussed. When there is a female majority (at least three of the five) in the group, discussion of women’s issues, or “care” issues, increased—but only if the group made decisions by majority rule. If the group employed unanimous voting, then care issues were discussed only when men outnumbered women in the group. Regarding talk time, women spoke significantly less than men until there were four women included in a five-member body. Gladwellesque sociologists take note—that is, an 80 percent “tipping point” for equality.

Overall, through an unusually rich combination of clear theorizing, deep background in several social science disciplines, convincing empirical research, and thought-provoking policy recommendations, The Silent Sex represents an unusually rich combination of tools assembled to build a solid argument. I highly recommend it for teaching advanced undergraduates or graduate students about gender inequality and the mechanisms that reproduce it.

Social Inequality and Social Stratification in US Society is an 11-chaptered approach that centers on class inequality but takes a dedicated intersectional approach. Through a historically grounded conceptual framework that explains the presence and reproduction of social stratification and social inequality, the textbook analyzes the four major American classes (upper class, middle class, working class, and the poor), identifies the major historical events that have influenced contemporary social inequality, and supplements the quantitative overview of rates and trends with rich, qualitative sources that reveal how the American dream of socioeconomic uplift is really an American nightmare.

Doob pays careful attention to how American capitalism functions as a system of class and caste, with special attention to status groups, occupational mobility, income and wealth, and many other elements that facilitate stratification and limit life chances. Unlike many other textbooks on the market, which attempt a faux “fair and balanced” overview of various “theories” of stratification that attempt to explain away inequality as an unfortunate by-product of the liberal state or as a problem only of irrational, microlevel discrimination, Doob stakes his claim early on. Briefly noting Davis and Moore’s (1945) structural–functionalist theory of stratification, he moves quickly through its flaws and takes the reader on a tour de force of more critical perspectives: from Marxist critiques, Weberian “iron cages,” Mills’ “power elite” to Dye’s institutional elite, where he does not dismiss any of the aforementioned perspectives but honestly shows how each shines light on a different aspect of capital, labor, and our major social structures.

Social Inequality and Social Stratification in US Society is an excellent book for those looking to introduce young readers to the paradoxes, contradictions, and human suffering inherent in the capitalist enterprise.

I conclude with a review most fitting for this issue and on a topic near and dear to my own heart and mind—race and ethnicity. Kathleen Fitzgerald—the author of Recognizing Race and Ethnicity: Power, Privilege, and Inequality—is the outgoing book review editor for HAS and current president of AHS. I am thankful for her years at the helm as book review editor and it is her shoulders on which I now stand. I was asked by Westview Press to read a prepublication copy and to provide a “blurb” for the back cover, in which I wrote that Recognizing Race and Ethnicity

…provides a thorough exploration of how racial identity is formed, how racialized ideologies become ‘common sense,’ and how racial inequality is reproduced. An important part of any sociologist’s library, Fitzgerald’s approach does not merely describe the racial order, but invites the reader to understand the salience of race and racism in our daily lives.

I repeat those words here for two reasons. The first is full disclosure that I had a role in the book’s publication and that I make no claims to objectivity. But the second is to alert the reader that I do not like race and ethnicity textbooks. I’ve never used one. I often feel hampered by any one author’s vision of the racial world. Hence, any textbook that generates my approval should be understood as significant. In my years of teaching in the field of the sociology of racism, race, and ethnicity, there are only a two or three textbooks that have caught my eye as significantly above par and useful—and Fitzgerald’s is one of them.

Fitzgerald uses 12 well-thought-out chapters to consider the contemporary landscape of “the continuing significance of race”—a phrase many “race scholars” have commissioned in the wake of Bill Wilson’s The Declining Significance of Race (1978) and Joe Feagin’s reply in the American Sociological Review (1991): “The Continuing Significance of Race: Antiblack Discrimination in Public Places.” These dozen chapters are arranged by the following four units: (1) “Thinking About Race” in which the reader is treated to a general overview on the definitions of race, the importance of focusing on whiteness and “white privilege” alongside people of color, and the role that science and sociology has played in helping and hindering racial equality; (2) “A Sociological History of US Race Relations” explains the emergence of “race” as a meaningful concept in U.S. society; (3) “Institutional Inequalities” demonstrates how the concept of race was thus institutionalized in education, the economy, the state, criminal justice, and our larger cultural imagination; and (4) “Contemporary Issues in Race/Ethnicity” explores new and taboo terrain in the study of race and ethnicity, from interracial relationships to sports and the revival of genetic-based explanations for racial inequality, and whether there ever will be, or should be, a “color-blind” society.

Fitzgerald’s book is an excellent example of a well-thought-out and carefully composed argument on the centrality of race and racism in our everyday lives. It is rigorous enough to convince the cynic, but suitably gentle as not to alienate the skeptic. In an era in which most undergraduates are born post-Apartheid (1994), post-Rodney King and LA Rebellion (1992), and are soon to be post-Obama (2008–2016), Fitzgerald’s text disabuses any naïveté that we are “post-racial.” Although many sociologists are optimistic about the future of “race relations” in the United States, Fitzgerald retains a more grounded and empirical approach whereby her book demonstrates how the future of the changing landscape of racism, race, and ethnicity “… is likely to be similar to race today in that there likely will be some racial hierarchy still in existence, with whites at the top” (p. 464).