Society’s Books of Note

Excerpt

Renée Fox’s memoir of her pioneering ethnographic work is praised in its precise importance by Anne Fadiman, former editor of The American Scholar: “[Her] life, like that of any pioneer in a tough field, glimmers before us as both an unreachable standard and a useful model... [she] will inspire sociologists, anthropologists, and bioethicists to do their best work and be their best selves.”

Described after his death in 2003 as “a philosopher-politician-diplomat who two centuries earlier would not have been out of place among the Founding Fathers,” Moynihan’s letters come closest to the memoir he never wrote. Rich with the details of active intellectual and political lives in one person, the book exemplifies the highest ambitions of both types of life.

The former Secretary of State offers an account of a life that puts liberal and conservative simplifications of America’s racial tensions to the test. She acknowledges her indebtedness to affirmative action but also insists that achievement is no longer principally hindered by racial discrimination. In that tension emerges moral instruction.

Wilfred McClay, in the Wall Street Journal, calls Putnam and Campbell’s book “a welcome balm, offering a reasoned discussion of religion and public life.” Relying principally on survey research, the book examines how religious Americans approach their life with others suggesting the importance of their strong social networks. The book’s authors are less sanguine about religious sentiments being too strong or influential in public discourse.

Bernstein, founding director of the Centre for Development and Enterprise (CDE)—one of South Africa’s leading policy think tanks, explains why corporations should stop appeasing their critics and promote the benefits of capitalism for the Global South. She argues that business needs to develop its own public agenda and start propagating the phenomenal benefits of competitive capitalism for the less developed countries of the world.