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NONTHEMATIC / Vol. 31, No. 3 (Fall 1964)


At the heart of history remains the problem of the origin of civilization. It underlies historical philosophy and cultural anthropology. Not only is the question vital in its own right, as a matter of historical understanding, but it may contain the crucial clue to the very nature of civilizations, and thus also to the problems of their life-cycles and decline.


Natural resource relationships among nations reflect the totality of the power patterns that underlie them. The character and quantity of the resources traded among nations, including the other elements involved in the transactions, such as shipping, financing and capital flows, are matters that can be explained satisfactorily by evaluating the relative power positions among nations. If power shifts, the relationships sooner or later must change. We are now experiencing, somewhat tardily, changes in natural resource relationships among nations which are beginning to correspond to the transformation that has already occurred in the world’s sociopolitical structure.

Appeasement is an emotive term referring to a highly emotional issue. The issue underlies much in recent and current foreign policy debate, not only in this country and on the West but also on the other side of the Iron Curtain. In the West, it has long divided the participants in the cold war debate over the problem of what to do about the world split, what to do about communism.

The purpose of this paper is to explore certain aspects of Soviet Russia’s new Party Programme’s goals for consumption, and particularly to analyze some of the implications of the role it gives to social consumption funds.

As a nation, we have been more concerned with poverty--or at least, we speak and write more about the poor--than any other civilized country. Yet, and almost in spite of this fact, there is no consensus as to the definition of poverty, its contemporary meaning, its theoretical and real causes, the size of the problem, the actions to be taken to do away with it or the dangers to our society for not doing away with it. This paper presents a preliminary attempt at defining poverty in order to clarify some of the issues involved and to formulate approaches to policy.

Bruno Bettelheim recently commented on the curious neglect by psychological theory of adolescence among girls. Even in literature, where social science is often anticipated, there are no female figures comparable in stature to Huckleberry Finn or Joyce’s Stephen. Until recently, pop culture did not have these bourgeois maidens. More closely related to the broad realities of social structure, popular culture reflected the hard fact that for most women there was no in-between period and little if any choice.

Berry, Brewton. New York: Macmillan Company, 1963. 212 pp

Review of book by Richard L. Sklar. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1963. 578 pp.

Review of book by Janet G. Chapman. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1963. 395 pp.

Review of book by Fred R. von der Mehden. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1963. 253 pp.

Review of book edited by Baidya Nath Varma. Bombay: Asia Publishing House, 1962. 248 pp.

Jerusalem: Ministry of Justice of Israel, 1962 and 1963. Distributors outside Israel, Oceana Publications, Inc., New York.

Review of book by Richard D. Lambert. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1963. 247 pp.

Review of book by Charles F. Westoff, Robert G. Potter Jr., and Philip C. Arthur. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1963. 293 pp.

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