Showing papers in "Contemporary Sociology in 2014"

Democracy and the Left: Social Policy and Inequality in Latin America:

Abstract: odization of the racial project in the Obama era. Given the volume’s focus on the United States, it is striking that so little attention (with the exception of Singh’s essay) is given to the mass incarceration and policing of the last thirty years; here surely is one of those elusive social processes by which race is forged and institutionalized. Undergirding the most trenchant chapters, however, is a common grounding in the transnational racial project of a declining U.S. hegemon. Whether this remakes the liberal imperial project or marks the failure of the neo-liberal/neo-conservative project remains very much an open question here. These ambiguities are revealed in Omi and Winant’s concluding chapter, where readers remain curiously tethered to a consideration—and in many ways, a defense— of the gains of the 1960s and 1970s social movements. This is at times difficult to grasp given the fierce abandonment by the left and right, Democrats and Republicans alike, of the postwar liberal and social democratic racial project. Still, as the authors in this collection repeatedly emphasize, uncertainty and fluidity in racial conceptions, identities, and movements for justice mark the present and near future—and this is a remarkable advance from the scholarship of a generation ago. Confronting the inability of past structural formations and discourses to explicate racial meanings and hierarchies as they are being remade by today’s movements, migrations, and states is still a bracing tonic. Even more problematic, and yet to be unearthed here, is the ongoing impact of the replacement of the Third World/U.S. racial binaries of the mid-twentieth century by the rise of Asian/ Global South relations in the decades to come. These observations only serve to underline the importance and value of this anthology to students and scholars of race in the twentyfirst century. Written in accessible language for undergraduate as well as graduate classes on race, ethnicity, and stratification, it marks the summation of almost a generation of engaged work undertaken during the collapse of liberal hopes and dreams for racial reconciliation. Living as we do in an unstable interregnum as a new, global racial regime is being forged, this collection and the questions its authors grapple with are all the more pressing.

Exponential Random Graph Models for Social Networks: Theory, Methods, and Applications:

Abstract: result of the social structure of American society.’’ This is true of the particular form or version of organized crime which he describes— it did not emanate from a transplanted Sicilian Mafia. That explanation, however, does not account for the many faces of organized crime in Australia, China, Russia, Japan, and many other places. Nor does it account for the growing phenomenon of transnational organized crime. Apart from any points of disagreement, this is a serious work of scholarship on a subject that has too often gotten short shrift in that respect. Organized Crime in Chicago is a good addition to the organized crime literature.

Venture Labor: Work and the Burden of Risk in Innovative Industries

Abstract: What advice do you give to young folks about jobs? I could tell them I made some investments in my employability, but it is equally true that I mostly muddled through the uncertain career paths of our times. In Frank Knight’s classic formulation, efforts to manage ‘‘uncertainty’’ turn it into ‘‘risk.’’ This idea is the starting point for Venture Labor, Gina Neff’s rich study of New York internet workers who embraced risk during the dot-com boom. This internet cluster, known as Silicon Alley, became the site of new forms of media and work. Neff seeks lessons from this first wave of digital startups even as a new wave tries to capitalize on social media, big data and the like. She wants to understand why such workers came to accept the idea that they are individually responsible for managing employment uncertainties. She offers a synthetic account of agency that contributes to debates about the role of calculation in economic action— a position usually in tension with established claims about action’s structurallyembedded or culturally-constituted nature. Chapter One outlines research on risk, work, and technology by showing how managing uncertainty has become a material necessity: government and corporations reduced supports for workers as the economy was being roiled by financialization, unstable demand, and the spread of flexible organization. What Neff wants to probe are cultural factors that have abetted and shaped the taking on of risk. While previous studies have documented broad cultural attitudes glorifying risk, she wants to explore the understandings of new media workers themselves—’’narratives, discourses, ways of talking about risk’’ (p. 12). Neff’s novel claim is that Silicon Alley workers actively embraced risk in their quest for a measure of control and autonomy. Her reasoning is that ‘‘risk and risk-taking in economic life now imply active choices while uncertainty connotes economic passivity and forces beyond one’s own control [emphasis in original]’’ (p. 15). Neff labels this sort of risktaking ‘‘venture labor’’—’’the investment of time, energy, human capital, and other personal resources that ordinary employees make in the companies where they work’’ (p. 16). She uses an array of methods to study venture labor in Silicon Alley from 1996 to 2002: participatory fieldwork, interviews with 54 individuals (e.g., owners and workers), and network mapping of participants in industry social events (over 8,000 participants at some 900 events). Neff also used trade publications to examine how the local industry talked about itself and studied how the mainstream news framed the industry. The heart of the book is two chapters which analyze how workers sought to manage risk through their narratives and networks. Chapter Three taps Boltanski and Thévenot’s work (2006) on the economies of worth to theorize narratives that surfaced in the interviews. In explaining their employment decisions, individual workers drew on different justifications—’’personal ways of evaluating the world’’ (p. 69). Based on what they esteemed in their jobs and careers, they developed different strategies for managing risk. Neff’s interviews revealed three strategies for managing risk: ‘‘creative, financial, and actuarial’’ (p. 69). The creative types had liberal arts and fine arts backgrounds while the other two groups were from a mix of content, software and business occupations. The creative strategy (40 percent of interviewees) saw that the creative projects warrant risk taking because success ‘‘could lead to further work and career reputations’’ (p. 83). One interviewee remarked that projects were all she ‘‘had to fall back on’’ if she lost her job (p. 84). A portfolio should express a unique ‘‘look’’ or ‘‘voice’’; the risk was putting in time for projects that ‘‘suck’’ (p. 85). Many creative types, who typically came to Silicon Alley before the boom began, felt they had ‘‘nothing to lose’’: jobs there often Reviews 397

The Fracturing of the American Corporate Elite

Abstract: in the United States, especially through Christian fundamentalist broadcast networks. Sharon Erickson Nepstad and Stellan Vinthagen discuss the greater success of the British Plowshares Movement, in contrast to the Swedish Plowshares Movement, in ‘‘Strategic Choices in Cross-National Movements: A Comparison of the Swedish and British Plowshares Movements.’’ Although both movements were inspired by and modeled after the American Plowshares Movement, the British movement found an internal structure that enhanced participation, while the Swedish model collapsed due to internal conflicts. The concluding chapter, written by Rachel V. Kutz-Flamenbaum, summarizes the book’s findings and areas for future research. This book is well-constructed; the chapters are uniformly strong and well-developed. Only two weaknesses in this volume occurred to me. With most chapters focusing on the mesoand micro-levels of analysis, there is not enough attention paid to the macro-level of analysis, the bailiwick of Gamson and Piven and Cloward. And because the chapters range across a variety of mesoand micro-level analyses, and a variety of venues, both nationally and internationally, it is hard for the reader to draw more general conclusions about the state of contemporary social movements from these chapters. Of course, the multiplicity of actors, settings, strategies, and consequences that accompany contemporary social movements is precisely what this book set out to explore.

From Parents to Children: The Intergenerational Transmission of Advantage:

Abstract: Once considered the land of opportunity, ostensibly welcoming tired and poor ‘‘huddled masses’’ from other countries, the United States is now a land of strikingly little opportunity. While recent research provided evidence of relatively low mobility in the United States, difficulties associated with intergenerational data and cross-national comparisons left some room for doubt. From Parents to Children, edited by John Ermisch, Markus Jäntti, and Timothy Smeeding, takes a wrecking ball to that doubt. Based on intergenerational data from ten countries, covering children from birth through adulthood, the authors find, over and over again, that U.S. residents have stronger associations between parental socioeconomic status and children’s life chances than residents of the nine other countries studied. While cross-national, intergenerational mobility research is always plagued by data limitations and inconsistencies, this collaborative project provides a rare degree of measurement standardization (particularly for parental socioeconomic status [SES] measured with the International Standard Classification of Education across all countries), which enables more informative and convincing international comparisons. In outcomes ranging from labor market and educational attainment, to health and cognitive measures, youth in the United States experience less opportunity than those in other developed countries. The consistency of this finding, across so many countries and outcomes, is remarkable. Only in socio-emotional outcomes is U.S. inequality outstripped (by Sweden). Such low relative mobility belies political claims that higher inequality in the United States is justified by greater mobility. Rather, the authors illustrate that inequality and relative mobility are negatively (though not necessarily causally) related. Importantly, the book makes further contributions to mobility research by addressing questions about the mechanisms involved in intergenerational transmission, how transmission patterns change over the life course, and where policy could have the most power to counteract intergenerational inequality. For example, the authors find that SES differences emerge early in the life course across all countries, resulting in unequal preparation for school. In general, these differences remain fairly stable over the life course and continue into adulthood. Thus, education systems do not shrink the inequalities found among children at entry. In terms of mechanisms, the studies find that SES inequality is greater for cognitive than for sociobehavioral outcomes, which suggests cognitive skills may play a greater role in transmission. However, an intriguing study by Paul Bingley, Miles Corak, and Niels WestergårdNielsen (Chapter 18) finds that higher earning parents in Canada and Denmark are more often able to secure jobs for their children with their own employer. Not surprisingly, therefore, the results presented in the book suggest that inequality is transmitted between generations through multiple mechanisms, including cognitive skills, neighborhood choice, and social networks. Policy recommendations include more equal access to high quality, early childhood education (which reduces but does not erase unequal opportunity), increased financial support for families at the low end of the income distribution, and support to improve parenting skills. While effects would undoubtedly be slow to appear, the authors point out that their consistent evidence of cross-national differences suggests that policy changes can improve mobility. With any policy, however, the book notes the importance of considering unintended consequences. For example, Chapter 15 by Reviews 85

Asian American Political Participation: Emerging Constituents and Their Political Identities

Abstract: Given that much scholarly and popular attention has recently been paid to the growing influence of Latinos in the U.S. political arena, Asian American Political Participation makes a significant contribution to the literature by providing a detailed examination of political involvement among Asian Americans, now the fastest-growing racial group in the United States. Janelle Wong, S. Karthick Ramakrishnan, Taeku Lee, and Jane Junn seek to document patterns and explain why some Asian Americans participate in political life and some do not, and among those who participate, why some individuals engage in political activity such as voting while others choose to contact government officials or work within the context of community organizations. The data source for the book is the 2008 National Asian American Survey (NAAS), a nationally-representative survey (N=5,159) based on phone interviews conducted with the six largest Asian national origin groups in eight languages. The authors developed the survey with an eye toward understanding political ideologies and priorities, party identification, ethnic and racial identification, and of course, political participation. The NAAS is especially timely because it was conducted before the 2008 election, and to date, it is the best publicly available data source on the social and political life of the Asian American population. The book also draws upon the 2008 American Community Survey (ACS) and Current Population Survey (CPS) data to provide additional descriptive background information about Asian Americans. For example, Chapter Three focuses on where Asian Americans live in regards to region of the country, new immigrant destinations, concentration of Asians, as well as political geography. But by and large, the main focus of the book is the NAAS. The primary strength of Asian American Political Participation is its comprehensive, detailed, and descriptive nature. It pays attention to the historical context within which different national origin groups comprising the racial category of Asian American come to participate in politics in the United States and describes these national origin populations regarding length of time in the United States, immigrant generation, citizenship, English proficiency, and variations among Asian national origin groups’ participation in five political behaviors: voting, political donations, contacting government officials, working with others in one’s community to solve a problem, and protest. The authors also successfully showcase how political participation among the Asian American population as a whole differs from other racial groups by providing useful comparisons with whites, blacks, and Latinos. Theoretically, the book highlights the uniqueness of Asian Americans, and makes the important point that standard variables and models used to explain political participation do not work well when applied to the Asian American population. For example, Asian American involvement in politics is lower than one would expect based upon a resources or socioeconomic model of political participation. In other words, socioeconomic status does not automatically translate into political involvement. When looking at national origin group differences, the survey data reveal that Chinese Americans have higher average socioeconomic levels than Japanese Americans, yet Japanese Americans are more likely to vote and make political contributions, and Vietnamese Americans have the lowest average socioeconomic status but are the most likely to vote and 282 Reviews

The Toughest Beat: Politics, Punishment, and the Prison Officers’ Union in California

Abstract: offered a chance to do something new. The second group wielded a ‘‘financial strategy’’ that evaluated firms ‘‘for their potential as lucrative investments’’ (p. 73). Most of these interviewees, the smallest group (25 percent), arrived in Silicon Alley after the stock market heated up. Their tone was rather macho. One, for example, dismissed ‘‘worker bees’’—people in conventional jobs who needed to be told what to do (pp. 77–8). Conversely, if one had stock options in a start-up, ‘‘the things that you did could affect the company and could affect the value of your holdings. So it gives you a sense of power’’ (p. 78). Another, in the manner of a venture capitalist, evaluated potential employers in terms of their business models. The third approach to risk was an ‘‘actuarial strategy’’ which entailed ‘‘calculating a degree of riskiness for each position, project, and company’’ with the aim of finding a ‘‘safe haven’’ (p. 88). This group (35 percent of interviewees) sought growing sectors of the industry and did not want to work for—or own— a firm that was dependent on venture capital. As one put it, ‘‘stock options were meaningless to me. That was Vegas roulette’’ (p. 90). Chapter Four confirms previous findings about the value of networks for accessing skills, jobs and credibility in Silicon Alley. More novel are insights gained from mapping social events. Neff found that the nature of networking changed over time. While earlier events had diverse mixes of participants from across sectors and occupations, later events became specialized to particular segments. This homogeneity reduced network access to new ideas and opportunities. Lastly, the centrality of networks in the industry heightened a particular form of inequality—social exclusion based on gender, age, and race. The penultimate chapter analyzes a last wave of interviews completed after the 2000 crash. They revealed that unemployed workers blamed their own choices. Neff’s interpretation is that the culture of risk which formed during the dot-com period survived its end. Her conception of this cultural process is that individual ‘‘justifications collectively functioned as an emergent social structure to support risk-taking’’ (p. 145). Neff advises that choices of these workers can be seen as rational, given these new cultural frameworks and job opportunities. The book’s great contribution is revealing how skilled workers associated good jobs with risk. Neff supplies rich data on their subcultures and networks, including their limitations. She usefully links Silicon Alley to long-standing templates in cultural industries (e.g., entertainment) where skilled workers exposed to risk rely on projects, portfolios and socializing. More problematically, Neff flirts with methodological individualism by claiming that individual values congeal into structure. In addition, the path that she illuminated so ably up to 2002 has taken turns she did not anticipate. Many Silicon Alley veterans eventually caught the Web 2.0 wave (especially if they were in technology which now overshadows content). Moreover, there are more supports for such workers given the creation of a Freelancers Union and the fact that city hall is seeking ways to spark New York’s innovative industries— reliance on finance does not seem a good bet anymore. Since the 2008 crash, most everybody is muddling through things.

Barrios to Burbs: The Making of the Mexican American Middle Class

Abstract: The narrative that dominates political discussions of immigration is typically defined by low-skilled Mexicans who crossed the U.S. border as unauthorized immigrants to toil in physically-demanding jobs with few opportunities for advancement. This description has come not only to structure debates regarding immigration policy but also frequently to define or even stereotype the entire Latino population. Latinos now number more than 52 million, one-sixth of the U.S. population, and have accounted for a majority of the nation’s growth since the start of the new century. Sustained migration from abroad and their young age profiles ensure not only continued growth but secure their critical place in America’s future success. Jody Agius Vallejo’s new book, Barrios to Burbs: The Making of the Mexican American Middle Class, explores the routes that Mexican Americans take to reach middle-class status. Her book shatters the myth that most Mexicans are downwardly assimilating into a new underclass. It highlights the varied paths—upward or stable—that Mexican Americans take toward achieving the American Dream. The book centers on the lives of 75 highly-accomplished Mexican Americans in Southern California and details how variations in class backgrounds prompted divergent trajectories to the middle class: some rising rapidly from humble beginnings and others reproducing their own middle-class origins. While the core theme of Vallejo’s book is the considerable heterogeneity present in the Mexican American community (a fact that is regularly lost in the popular narrative) the book also excels in describing the mechanisms that allowed her subjects to climb the socioeconomic ladder and the challenges they experienced along the way. The book is organized around several main themes: education, family connectedness, ethnic identification, and professional associations. As described in the insightful third chapter, education is the primary vehicle driving upward mobility among this group. The book makes clear, however, that the trajectory for those with more humble origins is bumpy and most of her respondents relied on early placement into high-achieving classrooms and adult mentors to navigate educational institutions in order to overcome the limited educational opportunities in poor barrios. To assess the cross-class ties of her middleclass respondents, Vallejo examines the strength of her subjects’ extended-family networks and their levels of giving to parents, siblings, and other family members who often remain in segregated neighborhoods and struggle financially themselves. In contrast to what research suggests about middle-class whites, Vallejo finds that middle-class Mexican Americans remain strongly linked to their broader family networks and serve as crucial sources of financial and cultural support for lower-class and foreign-born family members. While Vallejo finds that those raised in middle-class families are connected to poor kin in ways that most whites are not, she finds important distinctions between them and her subjects who rose from poor backgrounds. In particular, many of the most socially-mobile respondents felt that their parents’ (and others’) own sacrifices obliged them to provide economic and social support. Those reared in middle-class homes or by non-immigrant parents, by contrast, were more likely to embrace a sense of individualism because, Reviews 747

College (Un)Bound: The Future of Higher Education and What It Means for Students

Abstract: who ‘‘look’’ are middle-class U.S. men with the means to travel to Mexico or Columbia for a week. Their hope is to meet a local woman who embodies domestic stability, family values and passion. The male lookers are fueled by a frustration with feminism and modern life in the United States. They traverse national boundaries to rejuvenate their masculinity and ultimately the nation’s stock. The Latin American women are actively looking to escape traditional definitions of gender, sexuality and womanhood as well as unstable and corrupt governments. Schaeffer noted that Mexican men and the State of Mexico were often conflated in the comments of Mexican women. Women enter into cyber-space to find a sensitive, successful and hardworking male when they cannot find him in their local culture. In addition to an ideal partner, they are seeking upward mobility that will offer them a better life than they have in their home country. Another way they ‘‘look’’ is by attending romance parties with over 200 other women, all hoping to meet one of the forty U.S. men at this matchmaking event. The looking continues through emails, phone calls, and monetary support. Through this process of ‘‘looking,’’ Schaeffer illuminates the visions or ideals of a ‘‘better life’’ versus ‘‘warmth and sensuality’’ backlit by colonialism, modern self-help movements, transnational capitalism and ideals of a futuristic society. This reader would have welcomed a fuller description and analysis of when and how relationships shift from looking to finding. The final chapter concludes with a discussion of love and patriotism from individuals in successful and failed transnational marriages by describing the structural challenges that foreign brides and local grooms face in transforming their looking and finding into success. When it fails, the foreign bride transforms from the caring, passionate, sexual patriot into an ungrateful, traditional or obsolete female, and the egalitarian male groom who shared in household chores and offered economic stability and opportunities becomes an angry and distant partner in response to structural challenges. When the marriage succeeds it is the triumph of love and patriotism. Ultimately cross-national marriages respond to and rearrange structural boundaries defining foreign and native, tradition and modern, and citizen and outlaw.

Legalizing Prostitution: From Illicit Vice to Lawful Business

Abstract: common themes. While the concluding chapter, which comprises the third section of the book, provides a case study of a social movement organization that raises important questions about how to achieve social change during and after disasters, there lacks an additional chapter on policy implications. While there are many lessons to be learned from this book about creating ‘‘enhanced social justice for Katrina survivors and survivors of future social disasters’’ (p. xii), a more direct compilation of these suggestions would have been useful. One of the most important policy implications of this book is the light it sheds on the ‘‘less visible women-centered networks of care’’ that were ‘‘essential survival resources for the most vulnerable’’ and ‘‘key connections through which survivors identified themselves and measured the success or failure of their recovery’’ (p. 167). Weber and Peek’s volume promises a reflective discussion of the methodological challenges of white, middle-class women interviewing African American poor and working-class women, but there is more to be learned from these authors’ experiences and it is obvious that the brief early chapter on the experiences of ‘‘the research network’’ could have been expanded to address these issues more explicitly. Displaced will be an invaluable resource in undergraduate and graduate classrooms and required reading for scholars interested in intersectional inequalities, community development, social networks, and disaster. Its intentional privileging of black, workingclass and poor women’s experiences is unique and productive. A teacher in Peggy Orenstein’s book Schoolgirls, explains why she starts with a project on sexual harassment in her middle school classroom as a way to address women’s history more broadly by quoting Peggy McIntosh. She says, ‘‘. . . if you start your Civil War class with Diary of a Slave Girl you’ll get to Abraham Lincoln. . . . But if you start with Lincoln, you’ll never get to Slave Girl’’ (p. 265). I think this is a lesson for sociologists studying Katrina. By keeping African American, poor and working-class women’s experiences central in this book, we are able to see Katrina as a ‘‘social disaster’’ based on our society’s hierarchical relations of gender, race, and class. If we do not start with these women’s experiences, then their race, gender, and class privilege slip out of the analysis and we are much more likely to find ourselves talking about a ‘‘natural’’ disaster and planning recovery efforts that do not take into account these fundamental social inequalities and the real people affected by them.

Everyday Law On The Street: City Governance In an Age of Diversity

Abstract: Toronto prides itself on being “the world’s most diverse city,” and its officials seek to support this diversity through programs and policies designed to promote social inclusion. Yet this progressive vision of law often falls short in practice, limited by problems inherent in the political culture itself. In Everyday Law on the Street, Mariana Valverde brings to light the often unexpected ways that the development and implementation of policies shape everyday urban life. Melina Cordero finds a well-researched and carefully crafted study.

Determined to Succeed?: Performance versus Choice in Educational Attainment:

Abstract: The intersection of educational attainment and social class is well studied, but often from either a descriptive stance (yes, there is inequality by class) or from a single perspective (students from the working class do not attain the same levels of education as students from the middle and upper classes). Determined to Succeed? however, not only identifies the sweeping phenomenon of educational inequality by class, it also seeks to untangle the combined factors of (1) academic performance and (2) educational choice on the inequality of educational opportunity in an effort to speak directly to the need for focused and refreshed educational intervention should countries wish to see decreasing levels of inequality in the future. To say that I could keep track of every methodological nuance introduced in Michelle Jackson’s book would be wishful thinking, but to say that it is a clear, well organized, and insightful volume is nothing less than the truth. If only to use as an abridged explanation of the public school systems across Europe and the United States, this book is a worthwhile investment. The edited volume offers a chapter on each of the following eight countries: Germany, the Netherlands, France, Italy, Sweden, Denmark, England, and the United States. After valiant attempts to explain the ins and outs of each country’s public educational system, each chapter takes on the momentous task of deconstructing contributing factors to socioeconomic inequality in the educational attainment of a particular country. Though results are mixed, the message is clear: (1) academic performance and (2) educational choices, both strongly related to class, are each vital components of ongoing educational inequality. Further, the authors agree that educational policy and intervention must happen early in students’ educational careers if we are to hope for any substantial change to the current state of inequality. In each of the eight studied countries, the authors quantitatively model the impact of ‘‘primary effects’’ (academic performance) and ‘‘secondary effects’’ (educational choice) on educational stratification. The skillful editing of Jackson is evident in the consistency of language, variables, and structure across the chapters. This consistency allows for ease of comparison among countries and outcomes which is quite a feat considering the complexity and variety of educational structures addressed. Although the relative impact of secondary effects varies from country to country, the importance of both primary and secondary effects is well noted in each chapter. The whole of this book makes a compelling argument for future scholars’ more sophisticated approaches to the study of educational inequality along class lines. After a compelling introduction of the setting of the Inequality of Educational Opportunity [IEO] and a methodological chapter that has a place in any class on advanced statistics, the book offers stand-alone studies on each country. Each of these chapters differs from the others in large part as a result of the accessibility of data in each of the countries. In the concluding chapter, Jackson and Jan Jonsson offer a consolidated explanation for the differences in data among the countries. However, the great variety of data—in terms of sources, numbers, dates, and collection method—compromises the extent to which the findings are comparable across countries. For instance, Anders Holm and Mads Jaeger rely on panel data on cohorts from the 1950s and 1980s to analyze educational inequality in Denmark while Martin Neugebauer, David Reimer, Steffen Schindler and Volker Stocké use cross-sectional data on cohorts from the 1990s to analyze the German situation. Given this, I believe that the book should be taken as a wonderful introduction to the interrelated issues of primary and secondary effects, not as a final say on European and American educational inequality. Perhaps the most impressive chapter is the one in which Frida Rudolphi investigates the state of educational inequality in Sweden. This is, in no small part, due to the fact that 848 Reviews

Sex and World Peace

Abstract: a role that made an improvement in the community’s health and the lives of those affected by HIV. Harris gives a careful account of how leaders in The Balm and the black churches struggled to work within the complex web of meanings around drug-use, homosexuality, and sexuality broadly. The core lesson here is how organizations can work within meaning systems, rather than against them, with great success. Harris’ story is an account of how The Balm in Gilead combatted understandings of AIDS within the black church through the dissemination of AIDS ‘‘facts.’’ Harris is careful to acknowledge the constructed nature of facts and how they are mobilized by The Balm in Gilead to frame and advance their interests, by enveloping HIV prevention tips from the CDC in language that would be more appealing to black churches. For instance, in one passage a leader of The Balm translates the clinical language of condom promotion into a message that church leaders would accept by cloaking it in messages about abstinence and ‘‘God’s special gift of lovemaking.’’ This strategy enabled The Balm to communicate public health messages to the community though the trusted source of the black church without raising red flags for church leadership. The issue of trust is especially important in this case. The black community’s mistrust of medical establishments in the shadow of the Tuskegee Experiment made the church an important site for combating myths and urban legends around AIDS. By reconciling medical knowledge of AIDS with religious knowledge, it appears The Balm borrowed the power of the altar to great effect. Beyond her discussion of the reframing of AIDS for the black community, Harris also discusses the form through which these messages were disseminated. The Balm drew on social marketing techniques to communicate their message more effectively. Practitioners of health communication would find this chapter to be particularly helpful for their work. Ultimately this is solid, although not especially groundbreaking, research. While Harris brings a series of literatures to bear on this topic (e.g., social movements, social problems, sexuality, religion, social construction, framing, health and medicine, science and technology studies, and health communication), it was less clear to me how she was making contributions to these varied fields beyond introducing an understudied case. The book also left a number of questions unanswered. While it seems that The Balm was effective in communicating information about AIDS, did The Balm challenge the stigmatizing associations of AIDS with homosexuality, drug use, and sin, or merely circumvent them? In addition their rise seemed largely trouble-free in Harris’ accounting. Were there framing failures and institutional roadblocks on the way to their success? Social movement scholars and practitioners can learn from The Balm in Gilead: with so few scholarly accounts of effective AIDS organizations in the black community, seeing how The Balm in Gilead struggled might have offered deeper insight into what made them unique. Despite these minor concerns, AIDS, Sexuality, and the Black Church: Making the Wounded Whole offers scholars of HIV/ AIDS an important glimpse into this critical organization.

Romantic Love: Our ''Cultural Core,'' ''General Ideology'' and ''Undeclared Religion"?

Abstract: Eva Illouz describes romantic love as the ‘‘cultural core of modernity’’; a means of measuring our self-worth, an ‘‘anchor for recognition, the perception and constitution of one’s worth . . . the central link—in the long chain of interaction rituals’’ (p. 120). The problem is, however, the search for love is littered with ‘‘a long and loud litany of moans and groans’’ (p. 3). In Why Love Hurts Illouz wants to provide a sociological explanation to this question. She argues that throughout the twentieth century romantic misery has been framed as a psychological discourse and therefore as a ‘‘disorganization’’ of the body and of the mind, attributable to a flawed and weak self. The goal of the book then is to ‘‘shift the angle of analysis’’ from ‘‘dysfunctional childhoods’’ or ‘‘insufficiently aware psyches,’’ to the way that society and culture have come to ‘‘structure modern selves and identities’’ (p. 4). Taking this approach, Illouz organizes her argument around a number of key structures to examine the causes of romantic misery in late modernity. One source of romantic pain is the contemporary marriage market (Chapter Two). Unlike marriage in other epochs and in other traditions, ours (Western capitalist societies) is a ‘‘self-regulated market of encounters’’ (p. 41) where the competition has become more intense and more generalized, and where choice is, at least outwardly, governed by subjective factors such as personal taste, physical attractiveness and personality. How well one does on the marriage market is therefore linked to how well one does on the sexual market. Both the marriage and the sexual market play out differently for men and women, and more generally disadvantage women in a number of ways. Possibly the most important of these is the way in which commitment is sought and interpreted. Marriage and family are less sought after because they are no longer sites of male control and domination (p. 75). Instead men compete and assert their status by how well they succeed in the sexual market (p. 73). As such, men want to stay in the sexual market for as long as possible. For women however, their time in the sexual market is shorter: they enter it later because of career goals and leave it earlier because of the prevalence of sexiness and other strict criteria of beauty closely tied to age, and biological factors affecting reproduction (pp. 76–78). Women are also disadvantaged in love by the way in which recognition and commitment get trumped by autonomy (Chapter Four). In modernity, autonomy is a goal for both men and women. Illouz argues however, that men, have not only ‘‘internalized’’ the discourse of autonomy, but can practice it more readily and for a longer period of time (p. 136). These differences are also played out in the phenomenon of commitment phobia (Chapter Three). While nineteenth century masculinity was defined in terms of the capacity to feel strong emotions and keep promises, the central motif of twenty-first century relationships is that Why Love Hurts: A Sociological Explanation, by Eva Illouz. Cambridge, UK: Polity Press, 2012. 293pp. $16.95 paper. ISBN: 9780745671079.

Internal Affairs: How the Structure of NGOs Transforms Human Rights

Abstract: peers, who oftentimes consider them white, despite their African ancestry. While Winkler’s book is a formidable contribution to discussions of how children process racial messages, there are various shortcomings worth mentioning. First, her efforts to consider parental influences are undermined by her choice not to account for the possible influence of fathers. Second, despite her intention to examine class specific variations in children’s racial identity formation processes, she fell short of accomplishing this goal with her Detroit sample. Due to her sampling technique, her story is dominated by experiences of low-income residents and does not properly engage the experiences of African American children residing in the more affluent areas of Detroit. Winkler’s study illustrates the importance of exploring the factors that children identify as influential in shaping how they see the world and where they fit within it. Her book emphasizes how racialized contexts matter by illustrating how children’s experiences are specific to the norms, assumptions, and circumstances they face in their daily lives. She also demonstrates that the responsibility of addressing feelings of racial inferiority does not belong to parents alone, because racial inequality and the problems it creates are societal concerns that require a collective response.

Paying for the Party: How College Maintains Inequality

Abstract: engaged workers who whole heartedly supported the larger union initiative. From this example Ariovich goes on to articulate what she calls ‘‘an informal economy of favors.’’ She argues that efforts for any larger organizational change will founder if they break the personal relationship and reciprocity between mid-level union staff and union activists and rank-and-file members. Instead, she suggests that larger organizational change needs to link back to the real problems that workers are facing on the shop and office floor. In this way Ariovich suggests that ‘‘reformers managed to ground structural changes on workers’ preexisting grievances’’ (p. 269) and by ‘‘attending to mid-level leaders and activists’ views and allowing them to deploy their practical knowledge and skills’’ (p. 12). In this way, by addressing local workplace concerns, the union was able to engage members not just for the short-term workplace issues but for their larger union renewal effort as well. Organizing the Organized offers a clear roadmap for union renewal. Ariovich’s findings suggest that no matter how elegant topdown plans are for union restructuring, they will fail if they do not stay connected to real workplace concerns of current members. For it is through respect for activists’ practical knowledge and reciprocity that activists and members become the fuel for larger organizational change. Ariovich’s analysis is sharp, the findings are clear and this book should be on the desk of every union activist and leader as well as scholars of the labor moment and union renewal. In Working Class: Challenging Myths about Blue-Collar Labor, Jeff Torlina makes a passionate case against the argument that blue-collar work is only alienating, routine and dehumanizing. He does this by exploring the sociological literature on work beginning in the 1970s, and presenting findings from his interviews with blue-collar workers. While Torlina does yeoman’s work walking through the sociological work literature from the 1970s and 1980s, his analysis is somewhat dated given the emerging literature both from working-class studies and the explosion of new workplace ethnographies that have troubled the stereotypical notions of blue-collar work and skill. As part of this research, Torlina also interviewed 31 men, half of whom were construction workers, and workers that tended overall to be relatively skilled. Given this sample it is not surprising that he discovered workers who saw intrinsic value and pride in their blue-collar work. It is important to document the lives and work lives of those in construction and other skilled occupations and their conception about work. However, we cannot extend these findings to blue-collar workers in general given the growing diversity of blue-collar work by race, gender, immigrant status, and occupation. In his efforts to rehabilitate blue-collar workers from negative stereotypes about work, Torlina may have also overplayed his hand. He is so focused on presenting a positive view of work by those that he interviewed, that at times he seems to create one-dimensional characters, who are never bored, tired or alienated at work. Acknowledging the complex and often contradictory views we have about our work (Studs Terkel wrote brilliantly about it in the introduction to his 1974 Working) would have strengthened his argument by creating more complex and believable characters. For the question is not the essentialist one of whether blue-collar workers are fundamentally alienated or joyful about their work, but instead under what circumstance can workers demonstrate their skill and take pride in their work, or suffer the scourge of boredom and monotony.

Digital Media and Political Engagement Worldwide: A Comparative Study:

Abstract: associates were taking care of children in addition to programming’’ (p. 138). This included, for Shirley, adopting a masculine first name (‘‘Steve’’ instead of Stephanie) and hiding her maternal status, which she compelled her employees to do as well. Chapter Five shifts focus to examine women in academic computing from the postwar era to the present day, highlighting some women’s strategies to carve out a more hospitable space for women in this intensely maledominated field. Such strategies included, for example, an early listserv dedicated to women’s discussions of ‘‘purely technical topics’’ while explicitly avoiding ‘‘womenspecific’’ issues (p. 167), as well as a computer science conference explicitly for women, which provided on-site childcare and recognition for women’s achievements in the field while also creating a women-centered atmosphere for technical discussion and debate. Abbate’s tour through the postwar history of women in computing is both interesting and thought-provoking, yet at times the tour itself feels disjointed, as though the single thread—’’women in computing’’—that weaves through the book’s chapters is too thin to hold them together. Such a thread would be much stronger with increased attention to the theoretical questions that pervade this subject, including a sustained analysis of how each chapter of this history extends scholarly understanding of the processes by which work and organizations are gendered. One way to gain purchase on this would be to interrogate more deeply the anomalies and ambiguities that emerge from the history of women in computing. For instance, Abbate notes that, in postwar computer programming, ‘‘the conceptual categories of skilled work and women’s work were not mutually exclusive but rather existed in ambiguous tension’’ (p. 68). Indeed, she observes that metaphors about women’s domesticity helped legitimize women’s participation in early computing without feminizing (i.e., devaluing) the field. This apparent paradox warrants deeper interrogation as it would shed new light on the complex cultural processes by which feminized work becomes (or does not become) economically and culturally devalued. Abbate’s useful book thus sets the stage for further investigation into the mechanisms of organizational gendering and its consequences.

Breaking Rules: The Social and Situational Dynamics of Young People’s Urban Crime:

Abstract: Breaking Rules is mostly a book about situational action theory (SAT). Its four authors nicely summarize the theory’s main points and they present several tests of hypotheses suggested by the theory. SAT is primarily concerned with how individual attributes and environmental conditions jointly influence an individual’s decision to break rules, especially legal ones. SAT argues that people develop criminal propensities over time, based mostly on the degree to which they have internalized morality (i.e., accepted normative rules and corresponding negative emotions associated with thoughts about breaking these rules) and their ability to exercise self-control. SAT argues that while morality is necessary and sufficient for deterring crime, self-control is not a necessary condition. In an important twist on prior explanations, SAT argues that self-control is necessary for deterring crime only when a person’s morals are in conflict with a temptation or provocation; self-control is unnecessary when people have strong moral views. Furthermore, SAT sees self-control as a cognitive activity, rather than as a stable or fixed trait. SAT extends the propensity logic to the environment and maintains that settings also differ in their ‘‘criminogenic propensity.’’ Drawing on theories of social disorganization, routine activities, and collective efficacy, SAT argues that settings vary in their temptations and provocations; that is, in their moral context, the presence of moral norms, the level of rule enforcement, and the actions of others in the setting (e.g., behaving aggressively). Thus, SAT predicts that most crime occurs when individuals with high criminal propensity are exposed to settings that they perceive as high in criminal propensity. This exposure reflects a joint selection process: social selection (i.e., social forces) that result in people with a high criminal propensity finding themselves in criminogenic environments, and self-selection, whereby people with high criminal propensity choose to go to these settings. Per-Olof Wikström, Dietrich Oberwittler, Kyle Treiber, and Beth Hardie use an impressive set of data collected annually for five waves of the Peterborough Adolescent and Young Development Study (PADS). Peterborough is a modest sized U.K. city (2001 population ~156,000) where most youth spend their time in the city, rather than venturing to other urban areas (i.e., 93 percent of respondents’ waking hours were spent in Peterborough). It is also a diverse city: it has some of the country’s most affluent as well as the most economically disadvantaged neighborhoods, and approximately ten percent of its residents are nonwhite. PADS is a cohort study of ~700 young people and had a reasonable response rate (~72 percent) and a remarkable retention rate (~97 percent). The data collected include self-report information from youth first interviewed at age 12 and a primary caregiver, police records, a survey of community residents, census data, and a number of retrospective (i.e., the week-before) time-space diaries measuring how and where youth spent time over a four-day period during the week before each of the five waves of data collection. Comparisons with census and community data indicate that the demographic attributes of youth in the study closely resemble those of the larger population, as do the attributes of their caregivers. The authors use these data for a number of analyses some of which replicate results from earlier studies, while others bring new insights into offending. The former include Reviews 427

The Neoliberal Deluge: Hurricane Katrina, Late Capitalism, and the Remaking of New Orleans

Abstract: tion on all pupils in the ninth, and final, grade of compulsory school from 1988 onward’’ (p. 195). This comprehensive data allowed Rudolphi to map the steadily decreasing inequality over time which she attributes to decreasing secondary effects: net of academic performance, students from various social backgrounds are making increasingly similar educational choices. For another reason, I appreciated Mathieu Ichou and Louis-André Vallet’s chapter on France because it was the only chapter to consider both gender and ethnicity as factors contributing to educational inequality. Indeed, the authors had noteworthy findings related to both gender and ethnicity. Specifically, over time, the relationship between gender and secondary effects has shifted: previously, males transitioned into upperlevel education at higher rates than females, but that is no longer the case in much of the academic structure. Also, recently, ethnic minorities transitioned at higher rates than children of non-immigrants. Especially considering the significant findings by Ichou and Vallet, the conspicuous omission of ethnicity (in the case of Denmark) or both ethnicity and gender (in all other chapters) left me with a feeling of unanswered questions. Despite omissions that no doubt stemmed from the challenges associated with standardizing data from eight different countries, Determined to Succeed? is a book to be praised and widely read. If nothing else, I was left with a better understanding of the astonishing variation across countries’ educational systems and the astonishing similarity of the authors’ conclusions. The effects of social class manifest in academic performance and educational choices, which contribute to the past, current, and most likely future of educational inequality. The Neoliberal Deluge: Hurricane Katrina, Late Capitalism, and the Remaking of New Orleans, edited by Cedric Johnson. Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press, 2011. 406pp. $25.00 paper. ISBN: 9780816673254.

Killer Fat: Media, Medicine, and Morals in the American “Obesity Epidemic”

Abstract: In Killer Fat, Natalie Boero examines both the social construction of the obesity epidemic and the impact of that construction on fat people. To guide her work, she employs the concept of a postmodern epidemic, the characterization of a social issue in terms of moral panic and chaos normally associated with biological contagions. Since body weight is a biological measure, she argues, it was easy for policymakers and the medical community to frame the increasing weight of the population in terms of an epidemic. More important, however, are the consequences of this framing on the lived experiences of people participating in weight loss programs or pursuing surgical options to control their weight. The timeliness of Boero’s study is highlighted by the June 2013 decision of the American Medical Association to label obesity as a disease. Boero begins her study with a discussion of public health framing and media coverage of the rising prevalence of excess weight in the American population. She traces the development of the Healthy People reports from the Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS) and the dramatic change in the prominence of body weight as a health indicator. She focuses on the American context, although an interesting addition to this discussion would be the role of the WHO and emerging international standards of obesity that influenced, and perhaps were influenced by, this shifting discussion in the United States. Boero focuses particular attention on the roles of the American Obesity Association (AOA) and the North American Association for the Study of Obesity (NAASO), both of which advocated for the adoption of a disease model of obesity. These organizations served as moral entrepreneurs in the decision-making process of the DHHS, advancing their organizations through their own claims—making and discrediting alternatives. Some may criticize the use of the term ‘‘epidemic’’ to describe the increasing weight of the American population, but there is no doubt, as Boero admits, that the average body mass index (BMI) of the population has increased over the last several decades. What is interesting then, is not the fact of increasing body size, but the portrayal of this fact, and the reasons for the increase, by the media. In her second chapter, Boero explores how the media added fuel to the epidemic fire and helped create an atmosphere of fear around weight. The media created panic and chaos through their alarmist claims about the nature of obesity and its consequences. Ultimately, individuals are seen as responsible for their behavior and admonished to exercise better personal control. This emphasis on personal responsibility provides the framework for the remainder of Boero’s analysis. In Chapter Three, she describes her ethnographic study of two organizations associated with weight control, Weight Watchers and Overeaters Anonymous. Through participant observation she provides a rich description of the experience of attending meetings of both groups. She seamlessly blends interviews with her observations of the settings, literature, and approaches of the programs. Her decision to focus on these two groups provides contrasting perspectives on the nature and cause of excess weight. Is it normative pathology, as argued by Weight Watchers? Or, is it a unique disease resulting from compulsive eating based on emotional, physical, and spiritual illness? The tactics of the two groups differ markedly and are rooted in these differing conceptions of the root nature of the problem. Weight Watchers, Boero argues, focuses on women and the need to develop new habits around food. In contrast, Overeaters Anonymous views overeating (not obesity) as a disease over which one has little control and from which a person is never cured. The emphasis is on recognizing this individual lack of control, and dependency on a ‘‘higher power’’ to aid recovery. Chapter Four examines the increasing important role of bariatric surgery in the treatment of weight loss. She uses the lens of heterosexuality to highlight the gendered 346 Reviews

Becoming a Candidate: Political Ambition And The Decision To Run For Office

Abstract: of practically free tuition at universities reducing the impact on parents’ income for social mobility chances in most of the EU, and now with much higher levels of income and wealth inequalities in the United States, what we need are more comparative data sets (including U.S. data) measuring these situations to understand how many of the EU countries differ from the United States with respect to processes such as status attainment.

Putting Social Movements in their Place: Explaining Opposition to Energy Projects in the United States, 2000-2005

Abstract: Contemporary Sociology: A Journal of Reviews http://csx.sagepub.com/ Putting Social Movements in their Place: Explaining Opposition to Energy Projects in the United States, 2000 − 2005 Thomas D. Beamish Contemporary Sociology: A Journal of Reviews 2014 43: 235 DOI: 10.1177/0094306114522415bb The online version of this article can be found at: http://csx.sagepub.com/content/43/2/235 Published by: http://www.sagepublications.com On behalf of: American Sociological Association Additional services and information for Contemporary Sociology: A Journal of Reviews can be found at: Email Alerts: http://csx.sagepub.com/cgi/alerts Subscriptions: http://csx.sagepub.com/subscriptions Reprints: http://www.sagepub.com/journalsReprints.nav Permissions: http://www.sagepub.com/journalsPermissions.nav >> Version of Record - Feb 27, 2014 What is This? Downloaded from csx.sagepub.com at UNIV CALIFORNIA DAVIS on May 20, 2014

Judging Addicts: Drug Courts and Coercion in the Justice System:

Abstract: The Los Angeles Times recently ran a story featuring Lori Ann Newhouse, a 34-yearold mother of three who received a staggering 10-year prison sentence after she was busted by federal agents for buying a single gram of methamphetamine. In her case, prosecutors doubled what would have otherwise been a five-year sentence because it was Newhouse’s second drug conviction. The origin of harsh sentences like Newhouse’s can be traced back to a series of mandatory minimum penalties set by Congress in the AntiDrug Abuse Acts of 1986 and 1988. Mandatory minimums are the heart and soul of this country’s ‘‘War on Drugs’’ and as we near the 30-year mark of that war, stories like Newhouse’s have become all too familiar. So have the numbers. In 2012, just over 1.5 million adult Americans were serving time in state or federal prisons compared to 300,000 in 1980. Much of the growth is directly attributable to changes in sentencing policies that target drug offenders. The profound economic, political, and social costs of such changes and the attendant phenomenon of mass incarceration they wrought have prompted calls for radical reform from politicians on both sides of the aisle. In September 2013, U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder instructed prosecutors to move away from using ‘‘get tough’’ sentences against lowlevel, non-violent drug offenders like Newhouse. Instead, states and the federal government have been pursuing a variety of reformist alternatives, and none of these is more popular or more well-received than drug courts. In both the scholarly literature and in the popular press, drug courts are framed as an enlightened, progressive response to the drug problem, one that prioritizes rehabilitation over punishment and treatment over incarceration. But in much the same way that politicians and the public embraced the fiery rhetoric of ‘‘get tough’’ with little thought for consequences, we are in danger of a similarly uncritical and illinformed embrace of the drug court movement. So argues Rebecca Tiger in her timely and persuasive book, Judging Addicts: Drug Courts and Coercion in the Justice System. Tiger, who for many years worked in public health as a research and policy analyst, was once herself an advocate for drug courts and the broader discourse of medicalization in which they are embedded. However, as she became more familiar with drug courts, their practitioners, and their clients, her views began to shift. Specifically, two elemental aspects of the drug court movement gave her pause. First, most of the people she encountered in the courts were not there voluntarily but rather were mandated there by criminal justice system. The penalty for refusing to participate or complete drug treatment is frequently prison. Thus, instead of drug courts operating as a therapeutic alternative to the punitiveness of the penal system, they merely serve as an extension of it. In this sense, drug courts, like prisons, rely on coercion as a primary mechanism of social control. Second, Tiger began to question the philosophy of addiction that ideologically anchors the work of the courts. The disease model holds that drug addiction is a symptom of a diseased self. Practitioners frequently note, ‘‘The problem is the person, not the drug.’’ As such, drug courts surveil far broader aspects of defendants’ lives than is typically the case in criminal courts. Beyond evaluating treatment progress and other lawrelated stipulations, drug court judges weigh in on everything from a person’s job and family relationships to their appearance and attitude. As Tiger observes, the courts are ‘‘. . . far more concerned with how their [clients’] sickness manifests itself, namely in ‘antisocial,’ not necessarily criminal behavior’’ (p. 92). As such, drug courts run afoul of larger concerns regarding net widening and do so on shaky scientific grounds. Indeed, although the disease concept is ubiquitous in American culture, it enjoys little in the way of scientific support. Its power is in Reviews 741

Housing the New Russia

Abstract: network structures vary and how do factors like centralization and cohesion affect their political impacts? How have changes in other issue areas affected the international politics of human rights? One could go on, but the key point here is that this book is not only an engaging read addressing important questions about non-state organizations’ impacts on human rights practices, but it does what a successful book should to inspire new questions and agendas for future research. I hope sociologists will read it and carry its ideas forward; and I hope the book leads more political scientists to engage with the rich sociological literatures that can advance our collective knowledge about transnational organizing and global social change.

Women and the Animal Rights Movement

Abstract: Emily Gaarder’s Women and the Animal Rights Movement is a timely, insightful, and illuminating book that will add valuably to the growing development of animal sociology as well as to wider activist and public interest in animals and animal rights. The framing question and through-line of the book accounts for the reason that women, since the earliest foundations of the modern animal rights movement, have constituted the backbone and driving force for such activism. Gaarder’s presentation of evidence from nineteenth century anti-vivisection movements and modern animal rights activism alike shows a strong and sustained numerical preponderance of women in the movement. The book primarily draws on participant observation and interviews, but the author also draws on historical methods to give a longer-term picture of the movement. The book is based around interviews and discussions with 27 informants of various ages, races, sexual orientations, and degrees of movement experience. The only informant identified specifically is the well-known vegan feminist activist and author Carol J. Adams (who is an outspoken public intellectual in the area); the other 26 informants are presented anonymously, but information about their ages, ethnicities, and sexualities is provided. Though a small sample, the range of life and movement experiences represented by the informants yields a number of interesting and important findings. Particularly valuable are: the way the book lays to rest the tired old canard that vegetarianism is an index of class privilege (this is empirically denied both within the United States and internationally, where meat consumption is more tied to higher class status); the careful accounts from several perspectives about organizing and action dynamics within the animal rights movement; and the coverage of contentious debates within the movement about whether sexually-explicit or holocaust imagery should be used toward the ends of animal liberation (as it has been by People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals). Gaarder describes the prominent role of women in early antivivisection and humane movements as leaders and rank and file activists. She illustrates a particular Victorian context that gave rise to these movements and extensive participation by women (indeed, Queen Victoria herself took an interest, in the form of the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, and added her support in 1840, making it the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals). But Gaarder’s is not a top-down account focusing on the decisive actions of the Queen. She is more interested in the ongoing development of these movements and why, from the 1820s until today, women make up the numerically greatest share of animal rights groups. Gaarder indicates that the Victorian context harbored two strong ideological factors that likely contributed to women’s participation en masse: the sense that women were by nature more inclined to care for the disenfranchised (and thus had a moral duty to do so), and a more radical linkage of the oppression of women and animals. These elements of the debate, present since the early 1800s, remain issues of discussion and contention in the modern movement in the United States. The book shows the influence of figures such as Francis Power Cobbe in England, who argued that the mistreatment of animals in vivisection and of women in family and medical life were linked. Henry Burgh, Caroline E. White, and Mary F. Lovell played key roles in importing antivivisection campaigns from England to the United States and in establishing early organizations such as the Pennsylvania Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals. The notion that women are more disposed to care and empathy, either because of biological predisposition or socialization, is a theme that recurs throughout the interviews and considerations of the book. Some Victorian and early nineteenth century commentators, both activists and critics who dismissed the movement alike, made an explicit biological linkage that associated women with animals, and thus saw it as appropriate that women 532 Reviews