BOOK REVIEWS / Sociocultural Anthropology 685

breadth of deer, who damage all sorts of crops all over the coun-try. The author supports hunting as a simple solution to thesevarious problems, and in fact his entire book can be read as atreatise advocating responsible deer-hunting. On the openingday to hunting season in Wisconsin, 650,000 hunters take to thefield, and as Nelson writes, here, as in "many other parts of theUnited States today, hunting is no less important to farmers thanis the plow" (p. 310).

After all, deer have evolved along with people in NorthAmerica for as many as 10,000 years, and Native Americansacross the continent have always subsisted on deer. Nelsonbuilds a strong case for huntingrestrained and respectful, andconducted at a scale appropriate to local circumstancesas thebest way to maintain deer populations at healthy levels, to pre-serve habitat, and to protect farmers' investments. He explainsthat because of the ecology of contemporary agriculture,"[wjhenever any of us sit down for breakfast, lunch, dinner, or asnack, it's likely that deer were killed to protect some of the foodwe eat and the beverages we drink. This is true for everyone: citydwellers and suburbanites; men, women, and children; omni-voresand vegetarians; hunters, nonhunters, and antihunters" (p.310). Nelson offers a gentle but pointed critique of animal rightsactivists who protest hunting, or of anyone who claims huntingis "unnatural."

Nelson frequently invokes the Koyukon and refers to the hun-dreds of ways they show respect toward nature in their religiousbeliefs and daily practices (pp. 284-285). I think his Koyukonteachers would feel satisfied with the way in which Richard Nel-son has internalized these sensibilities in his study of living withdeer in North America. While the grocery store fosters "the illu-sion that life sustains itself without taking other life" (p. 7), Nel-son reminds us of this biological reality, a truth directly experi-enced by roughly 16.5 million deer hunters in the United Statestoday. Of course, anthropologists know that hunting has sus-tained humanity for millions of years, but few of us take timeaway from our hurried routines to see our ecological connec-tions to the deer in our forests, fields, and backyards, or to under-stand our neighbor's passion for hunting. Richard Nelson'sbook is a comprehensive and compelling account of the myriadinterrelationships between North Americans and deer. Thiswork integrates a range of disciplines and should be of value tomany different subspecies of anthropologists. *

Hurricane Andrew: Ethnicity, Gender and the Sociologyof Disasters. Walter Gillis Peacock, Betty Hearn Morrow,and Hugh Gladwin, eds. New York: Routledge, 1997. 278 pp.

MARY LOU WYLIEJames Madison University

This book is a well-integrated collection of articles on the im-pact of a hurricane by a research team, many of whom were vic-tims themselves. Since the entire team worked together as theydivided into smaller groups to study specific issues, they wereable to share a common theoretical orientation and take care toaddress all relevant questions. As a result, in contrast to most ed-ited volumes, the coherence and development of the book areimpressive.

The book begins with three articles that provide a good intro-duction to the rest of the text. "Disaster in the First Person" pro-vides a description of the hurricane, the damage, and the victims,as well as the research team, their various research projects, andthe book's organization. Since both Hurricane Andrew and theMiami community have unique features, this chapter provides anecessary basis for understanding many of the issues that are ex-amined throughout the text. The second chapter explains thetheoretical perspective that is used throughout the book. Withthe focus on community and various elements of the Miamicommunity, it is important to understand the ecological networkperspective that is used. The third chapter gives a description ofthe sociopolitical ecology of Miami before the hurricane. Thisallows the reader to have a base of comparison while readingabout the impact of the hurricane on the community.

The fourth and fifth chapters describe the time immediatelybefore and immediately after the hurricane struck. As the fourthchapter recounts the warnings, preparation, and evacuation,there are interesting differences that are apparent. The moststriking differences included that households with at least onemember over 65 began preparations earlier than others but wereless likely to evacuate, while households with children weremuch more likely to evacuate. The fifth chapter recounts thecritical events of the hurricane and the decisions that were madein the management of the emergency. Although there was anemergency plan in place, it assumed voluntary coordinationamong the various jurisdictions, and there was no way to en-force compliance. The magnitude of the disaster made the plandifficult to execute, and there were problems either with follow-ing the technocratic role of implementing the plan or with mov-ing outside the system to attempt to respond to the situation.

In the next three chapters, authors describe the experiences ofthe victims and explore the issues of gender and ethnicity in dis-asters. In chapter 6, (Yelvington) describes the tent cities thatwere established to provide immediate housing for some of thevictims. Although there were innumerable problems with thetent cities, the authors focus on ethnicity issues that have beenrarely addressed in the disaster literature. For example, therewere language problems, complex family arrangements, andnarrow guidelines for services that often eliminated people whowere most severely victimized by the hurricane. In chapter 7,(Enarson and Morrow) examines the way that the hurricane af-fected women differently than men. Through four compositedescriptions of female victims, the authors explain the elementsof disasters that hit women most severely because they continueto provide most of the household labor and family caregiving.Since there has been little work in the area of gender and disas-ter, the authors also suggest an agenda for future research in thisarea. The eighth chapter focuses on the role of families in the dis-aster response and the impact of the hurricane on families. Fami-lies provided networks of support before and after the hurricane,but the stress after the hurricane took its toll on families. Therewere higher divorce rates immediately after the hurricane andhigh rates of family stress reported among those with the mosthurricane damage.

Chapters 9 and 10 explore the impact of race and ethnicity ondamage, insurance settlements, and relocation, while chapter 11discusses the experience of the poor, Black community of Flor-ida City. In looking at damage and insurance, the researchersfound that Blacks experienced greater damage but had a higher

686 AMERICAN ANTHROPOLOGIST VOL. 101, No. 3 SEPTEMBER 1999

likelihood of insufficient insurance settlements. However,among those disaster victims who were insured by one of the"top three" insurance companies, there was no significant dif-ference among racial and ethnic groups in settlements. Segrega-tion limited both movement out of the disaster area and disasterrecovery for Blacks. Florida City had a disproportionate loss ofhousing, population, and businesses, as compared to anothersmall city, Homestead, with a higher Anglo population, andfaces an uncertain future.

The final chapter is a discussion of the impact of the disasterin fostering social change in Miami. There were short-lived con-sequences of unity and community solidarity, but the long-termchange was more complex. For example, there was some degreeof unity and pulling together across ethnic and racial lines, espe-cially through new organizations for disaster recovery. How-ever, it also appeared that now there is greater inequality andsegregation in terms of households in the disaster area.

This book is of great value to those interested in disaster re-search and policy. The well-organized presentation provides anin-depth examination of many aspects of a community devas-tated by a natural disaster, and it gives a particularly valuablelook at gender and ethnicity, which are frequently ignored indisaster research. Another valuable facet of the book is the pol-icy section of each chapter. After discussing the research find-ings, the authors suggest policy implications for each issue. Be-cause of these suggestions, the book could also be of use inupper-level or graduate courses in which a professor wants todemonstrate clearly the link between research and policy. Ihighly recommend this book to researchers, policy-makers, andteachers interested in the area of disasters. *

Life among the Yanomami: The Story of Change amongthe Xilixana on the Mucajai River in Brazil. John F. Peters.Peterborough, ON: Broadview Press, 1998. 292 pp.

LESLIE E. SPONSELUniversity of Hawaii-Honolulu

This ethnography is based on long-term field research, no lessthan eight years actually living with the Mucajai Yanomami(1958-67), and that followed by half a dozen subsequent visitsover the last two decades. Furthermore, Peters and his wife, anurse, raised four of their children among the Yanomami. Hisfamily situation provided a unique opportunity to interact so-cially and in conversation with the Yanomami on an intimate ba-sis each day, a more normal manner than the usual lone anthro-pologist, even if a recurrent visitor. The depth of this experiencecomes through clearly in this richly detailed, well balanced, andcomprehensive ethnography. Peters's attitude toward theYanomami is revealing: "I enjoyed life in the rainforestI wasalways to find the time spent with the Yanomami stimulatingand enriching" (p. 13). (This resonates with my dissertationfield experience with a northern group.)

It is also noteworthy that Peters was one of the first non-in-digenous persons to have sustained contact with Yanomami inthe Mucajai, and that this was as a member of the UnevangelizedField Mission. He returned to Canada in 1967, holds a doctoratein sociology, and is a professor at Wilfrid Laurier University.

(Previously he coauthored a book with John Early that is themost sophisticated demography on any Yanomami population.)

Among the 15 chapters, 1 provides general background, 2discusses field experience, 3-6 village life and individual lifecycle, 7 religion, 8 precontact history, 9-10 missionization, 11violence, and 12-15 sociocultural change. Chapter 13 providesa penetrating analysis of disease and health care as agents ofchange and raises some serious questions including some aboutgovernment responsibility and irresponsibility. However,change is an underlying theme in all chapters.

According to Peters, traditionally the Yanomami themselvesare concerned primarily with food, spirits, and taboos, and onlysecondarily with marriage, reproduction, raids, and feasts.However, Peters chooses to focus his ethnography on two levelsof temporal processesthe changing lives of individuals (in-cluding socialization, life cycle, marriage, and family), and thechanging society as a result of contact, especially with mission-aries and miners, but also, interestingly, with other Yanomamiand other indigenous societies. The first set of themes reflectsthe author's special interest in a structural functional approachto family studies. The latter set is dictated by the realities of theexternal forces imposing on the Yanomami that Peters, unlikemost other anthropologists writing about them, cannot ignoreand approaches critically and in terms of professional ethics.

Interesting differences are revealed between the MucajaiYanomami and other groups, emphasizing the significant vari-ation within the Yanomami that most other ethnographers havenotrecognized let alone pursued. Moreover, Peters identifies as-pects of culture that have been modified or lost, and other as-pects that have persisted or even been reinforced. Cultural sur-vival and the politicization of the Yanomami are among theother special topics considered. Thus, unlike so many accountsof the Yanomami (ethnographies, textbook descriptions, etc),this one does not emphasize "traditional" culture to the exclu-sion (or near exclusion) of the tragic forces of ethnocide, geno-cide, and ecocide that they have experienced in recent decades.(Other rare exceptions are the books by Dennison Berwick,Linda Rabben, and Alcida Ramos.)

Peters has the intellectual and moral courage to confrontsome very tough questions that do not have easy answers. In theprocess he also exposes the hypocrisy of human rights advo-cates who justifiably scream at the violation by outsiders of theYanomami yet remain embarrassingly silent about how someYanomami individuals violate some other Yanomami. This is-sue, and relevant concepts like cultural relativism, should makefor lively discussion in classes where students read this book as acase study. Likewise, readers will probably be especially inter-ested in the various Yanomami criticisms of Western culturethat Peters reveals. However, it would also have been fascinat-ing if the author and his family had drawn heavily on materialfrom their field diaries and correspondence, another aspect ofreflexivity in contemporary ethnography.

Despite the usual ambivalence and even antipathy betweenmany anthropologists and missionaries (see Missiology,24(2): 162-280, 1996), for those who can read this book withopen minds as scholars and scientists, there are rich rewards. Pe-ters offers an ethnography that is very special in its method, ap-proach, foci, and insights, in addition to the account of missioni-zation and the new data on the Mucajai Yanomami. Those whohave followed the years of debates over the character and causes