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NONTHEMATIC / Vol. 27, No. 3 (Fall 1960)


Kenneth W. Thompson
Moral Purpose in Foreign Policy: Realities and Illusions

Americans in the period between the two world wars were often exhorted to seek world peace through international law and novel world institutions. In the aftermath of World War I many loyal and responsible persons felt a deep sense of shame and guilt. While Woodrow Wilson had been the prophet of world law and order, the Senate, after his return from the Paris Peace Conference, repudiated the League of Nations. The generation that included the nation’s intellectual leaders, among them such men as Nicholas Murray Butler and James Shotwell, called for rededication to world organization and effective world law. Their resolve and conviction and that of many others paved the way for American sponsorship of the United Nations and a new International Court.

J. A. Raffaele
United States Propaganda Abroad: Notes on the USIS in Italy

A basic function of national propaganda is to improve a foreign nation's image of oneself. From such improvement a groundswell of changes in the foreign nation is expected, favorable to the interests of the propagandizing nation. Thus the stated central purpose of the USIS, the official disseminator of the American image in Italy, is to expose Italians to the American way of life, and persuade them of its values…

Gerhard Colm
In Defense of the Public Interest

In political debate, judicial practice, and economic-policy discussions the term public interest plays a dominant role. The term lends itself to convenient use--partly because it resists, by its nature, precise definition. For this very reason, however, the idea of the public interest has been viewed with suspicion by those who try to formulate a rigorous 'scientific' theory of political science or economics, especially public finance. Thus the recent literature in these fields has revived earlier efforts to do without a concept which so stubbornly defies neat and precise nomic behavior.

Werner S. Landecker
Class Crystallization and its Urban Pattern

Although quantitative analysis has been applied to many aspects of class, the "class" character of given strata has not been treated in qualitative terms. "Being a class" has not been described as a property that may be present in varying degrees. This is not to say that the concept has always been used with the intent of asserting the full-blown existence of a class. The point is rather that, as yet, attention has not been directed to such questions as "To what extent is a give system of stratification a class system?" or "How do different segments of that system compare in the degree to which they are classes?" The chief purpose of this paper is to develop an approach that would make it possible, both conceptually and operationally, to pursue such questions.

J. B. S. Hardmann
The Needle-Trades Unions: A Labor Movement at Fifty

In earlier years the Fur Workers International Union (FWIU) was considered a member of the constellation, but the link was loosened in the 1920s, when communists took over the furriers, and recently they were absorbed by the Amalgamated Meat Cutters and Butchers of North America and ceased to continue as an identifiable union entity.

Mary Henle
A Psychological Concept of Freedom: Footnotes to Spinoza

Of course an idea that reappears at different times is in some respects not the "same" idea. Each age clothes it in its own dress. At each period it appears against a different philosophical background. It might thus be argued that to discuss Spinoza’s view of freedom apart from its metaphysical background is to distort it; that Spinoza cannot properly be treated as if he were a psychologist in the modern sense. While it is clearly possible to focus on differences, this paper will emphasize, rather, the essential core of similarity between certain of Spinoza’s ideas and certain modern ones.

Janice W. Harris
Political Man: The Social Bases of Politics

Review of book by Seymour Martin Lipset. Garden City, New York: Doubleday. 1960. 432 pp.

Daniel V. Finneran
The Congressional Party: A Case Study

Review of book by David B. Truman. New York: John Wiley. 1959. xii & 336 pp.

H. Pachter
China: Its People, Its Society, Its Culture

Review of book in collaboration with Samuel C. Chu, Leslie L. Chark, Jung-pang Lo, Yuan-li Wu, under the editorship of Hsiao Hsia. New Haven: Human Relations Area Files Press.

Hans Neisser
A General Theory of the Price Level, Output, Income Distribution, and Economic Growth

Review of book by Sidney Weintraub. Philadelphia: Chilton. 1959. xi & 123 pp.

Alexander Melamid
Perspective on the Nature of Geography

Review of book by Richard Hartshorne. Monograph Series of the Association of American Geographers, Derwent Whittlesey and Andrew H. Clark, eds.Chicago: Rand McNally. 1959. 201 pp.

Albert Salomon
Max Weber: An Intellectual Portrait

Review of book by Reinhard Bendix. Garden City, NY: Doubleday. 1960. 480 pp.

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