Government of Cities in the United States. by Harold ZinkReview by: Edward James WoodhouseSocial Forces, Vol. 28, No. 2 (Dec., 1949), pp. 224-225Published by: Oxford University PressStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2572667 .

Accessed: 16/06/2014 23:27

Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at .http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp

.JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range ofcontent in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new formsof scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org.

.

Oxford University Press is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to Social Forces.

http://www.jstor.org

This content downloaded from 185.44.79.67 on Mon, 16 Jun 2014 23:27:42 PMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

224 SOCIAL FORCES

PoLincs AMONG NATIONS. By Hans J. Morgenthau. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1948. 489 pp. $5.50.

The volume can be regarded as a magnificent tool to help us to interpret the contemporary inter- national conflicts. Mr. Morgenthau presented very intelligently the scene in which international rela- tions are functioning. He describes this scene as a society of sovereign inations organized into two power blocks struggling for power in order to survive and restraining their power drives by the principles of power balance.

The merit of Mr. Morgenthau's book rests in revealing that we are still in a society of sovereign nations, that power politics still is the core of international relations, and that power balance maintained by intelligent diplomacy is the only effective means to restore and to preserve world peace.

Very interesting and revealing is Mr. Morgen- thau's description of the decline of traditional diplomacy, whereby he points out that one element of the international crisis in our present time is the lack of appropriate procedures for international negotiations.

The author does not overlook that we also lack new objectives upon which a power balance in modern times could be based. He points this out by describing the two super-powers-the United States and the Soviet Union-as imbued with the crusading spirit of the new moral force of national- istic universalism, both tempted and frightened by the potentialities of total war. Two super- powers, the centers of two gigantic power blocks, face each other in inflexible opposition.

Mr. Morgenthau does not leave us without hope. He proposes a solution of the contemporary inter- national crisis in terms of a renewal of diplomacy by defining the limitation of the United Nations on one side and the possibilities of traditional diplomacy on the other side when it is divested of the crusading spirit of nationalistic universalism and based upon the tasks of diplomacy to restore a wholesome world power balance under proper use of the mealns of diplomacy.

We learn from the book that the solution of our international problems in terms of new common objectives of diplomacy cainot be found today but that a right interpretation of short-range objec- tives of diplomacy may enable us to restore at least a temporary power balance between the two power blocks until a time when it xvill be recognized

that the two power centers of the East and of the West can and must live together as Protestants and Catholics learned to live together after the Thirty Years' War.

Intelligent diplomacy is designed to help us to solve the problems of objectives of diplomacy with- out war. Mr. Morgenthau's book can be regarded as an excellent instrument for the interpretation of the international situation and as an excellent guide to the solution of the contemporary inter- national problems. Students of international rela- tions can hardly get a better text book for equip- ping them for active participation in the solution of the crucial international issues of today.

ERNST BoRINsKI Tougaloo College

GOVERNMENT Or CITIES IN THIE UNITED STATES. By Harold Zink. New York: MacMillan Company, 1948. 637 pp. $5.00.

This revised edition of one of the best books on city government in the United States has added to the many excellencies of the first edition of this textbook (1939). The title should include adminis- tration because nearly half of the pages are devoted to the working of municipal government.

The author treats, so as amply to justify a new book, recent significant changes in municipal government in the United States, namely, (1) the enlarged role of the Federal government in city affairs, (2) the elaboration of public welfare pro- grams, (3) the changed emphasis in city planning, (4) the improvement in local public personnel practices, (5) the added interest in public housing, (6) the accentuation of the difficulties incident to obtaining adequate municipal revenues. He sees certain trends in the teaching of political science: (1) an increased appreciation of the influence of pressure groups and citizen's organizations in city government, (2) greater attention to public re- porting, (3) the drift away from a predominant emphasis upon the legal aspects of city government, especially in undergraduate courses, (4) and the growing realization of the vigorous role of political organizations and machines.

This book is characterized by excellencies in outlining, in balance, in simplicity, in scholarship, clearness and thoroughness. No better book on city government and administration (treating the two in one volume) has appeared in the United States. The work is a boon to students and teachers of this subject. One might complain mildly of the

This content downloaded from 185.44.79.67 on Mon, 16 Jun 2014 23:27:42 PMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

LIBRARY AND WORKSHOP 225

complexity and obscurity of the diagram on Urban Population on page 9 and wish that the author had prepared one for himself instead of using this poor one from the National Resource Committee. Nor is the diagram on Crime Rates at page 30 a success- ful visual representation, but the other diagrams are good and most useful.

As would be expected by those acquainted with the author's volume on City Bosses in the United States, one of the best chapters in this book is that on the Superstructure of Political Organizations in Cities. But chapters such as those on the Relations of Cities to States, on The Mayor, Municipal Pressure Groups, The Council-Manager Form of City Government, and others are of almost, if not quite, equal quality. The bibliographies at the ends of chapters and the footnotes show an amazingly comprehensive use of the secondary works and the original sources on municipal government. Indeed, one has to look long and carefully to find biblio- graphical omissions of any importance. It would seem that the two small but useful volumes by C. M. Fassett should have been included as well as the article by him actually cited, especially in view of Fassett's experience as mayor and one of the Commissioners of Spokane, Washington, and of the reflection of this experience in his writings. And it is surprising to find omitted from the bib- liography on the City Manager Plan the first book on the subject, by Harry A. Toulmin, City At- torney of Dayton, Ohio, in its early experience with the City Managers.

EDWARD JAVMES WOODHOUSE UTwiversitv of North Carolina

HuMAN RELATIONS IN THE RESTAURANT INDUSTRY.

By William Foote Whyte. New York: McGraw-Hill Book Company, Inc., 1948. 378 pp. $5.00.

This volume is the research report which the National Restaurant Association employed the author to make during 1944, a time when human problems in the food-retailing business were, as most of us recollect painfully, of the greatest im- portance to customers as well as to employers. The frame of reference of the report is that of in- dustrial sociology, modified to deal with social in- teraction among personnel of the restaurant, an occupational environment which the author found to be very different from that of a manufacturing industry.

The method of study is described as follows (p. 359): "In making this one-year study of the res-

taurant, I was aided by three research assistants. We handled the research in two ways. First, we went in and interviewed employees, supervisors, and executives on their human relations problems. Second, each of us spent between one and six months performing various restaurant jobs, in some cases being actually on the pay-roll of a restaurant." This interview or participant-observer method yielded the necessary data on the restau- rant person-in-action, on the restaurant as a social system, and on the human elements and attitudes on the job and in the supervision of the job. The evidence, although completely non-statistical, is convincingly presented in the form of a body of case materials, consisting of excerpts from inter- views and accounts of actual situations of sig- nificant social contact and interaction. The careful and methodical examination of the whole social structure of a "typical" restaurant is so well done that so-called pathological situations (from the standpoint of the customer or manager) are seen to be part and parcel of "normal" human behavior in this particular occupational environment.

The reviewer is unable to tell to what extent the topics for the research investigation were deter- mined in advance by the needs of the National Restaurant Association and the restaurant super- visors and managers for whom the book (presented entirely in non-technical language) is intended. The reviewer can state that the report clearly re- veals to him what makes the restaurant "tick"; that is, for the dozen or so Chicago restaurants from which data were drawn, one may see most vividly the sociology of occupational relations, both in terms of the social structure of a res- taurant, and in terms of the dynamics of inter- actional relations between employees, customers, and managers. The reviewer ventures to guess that the restaurant business has or will profit enor- mously from this thorough exposition and analysis of the patterns of human relations within its com- ponent units.

The reviewer feels that this volume is an im- portant contribution to the sociology of occupa- tions and that, when time and funds are available many other occupations and professions can be meaningfully explored in this way. Specialists in guidance and career analysis are especially urged to read this book.

MYRON F. LEWIS

Washington, D. C.

This content downloaded from 185.44.79.67 on Mon, 16 Jun 2014 23:27:42 PMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions