Review: [untitled] Author(s): Edith Kurzweil Reviewed work(s): Ethnic Diversity and Conflict in Eastern Europe by Peter F.

Sugar Source: Contemporary Sociology, Vol. 10, No. 5 (Sep., 1981), pp. 684-685 Published by: American Sociological Association Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2066555 Accessed: 12/12/2009 15:12
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BOOK REVIEWS

raeli Arabs seem very useful for the sociologist who approaches this field. The authors classify the major contributionsinto three categoriesthat representdifferentscientific approaches as well as different political viewpoints: (1) the traditional mainstream social-psychologicalapproach combined with minimal political involvement; (2) the "colonial" approach, which is a radical proPalestinian approach; (3) the "conflictpluralistic"approach, which tries to steer a middle course. The majorpartof the volume is taken up by the bibliography,which lists the 245 items; items published in Hebrew appear with a translatedtitle. The Hebrew sources are then listed again in an appendix, in Hebrew, but withoutannotation.Otherappendicesinclude: a list of some of the researchpublishedin 1977 (an attempt to update the book just prior to publication),a list of additionalsources available (such as older bibliographies),a list of relevantperiodicalsand abstracts,and a list of publicationscontaining mainly statistical material or documentarysources. Finally, there is a most useful list of the names and institutional affiliations of social scientists, both in Israel and outside it, who are currently engaged in social research on the Arabs in Israel. Summing up, I think that this thoroughly researched volume will prove to be an indispensable companion for any researcher undertaking a new project in this fascinating field. It may, naturally,also be of interest to sociologists who wish to deepen their general knowledge of a subject area that in recent years has attractedthe attentionof social scientists and politicians alike.

for the creation of nations, or for the redrawing of national boundariesare the theoretical questions addressed in this volume. The answers, which show how ethnicity differs from nationalism, how definitions of ethnicity, themselves, may be subjective or objective, how symbols, myths, and common beliefs are deployed for ethnic gain, are rooted in practical examples in the studies of this exceedingly diverse and complicated area from a multicultural, and a most comprehensive, perspective. For all the ten authors in this collection of articles, ethnicity is the organizingconcept for studies in ethnography, peasant culture, ethnic symbolismand challenges, state policy, class differentiation,power, and much more. So even though they do not face what Kolakowski calls "the immense concentration of power which exceeds anything known in history"head on, this book on ethnicity as the vehicle for the liberationof specific groups or for the exploitation of minorities by states (from Tsarist Russia and the AustroHungarian monarchyto satellite bureaucracies and the Kremlin) exposes the totalitarianism of Eastern European societies. Trond Gilbergeschapter, for example, examines the development of a sense of nationality, and of ethnic configurations-in all of Southeastern Europe-before introducing an analysis of 1966 Romaniancensus data in relation to changingnationalboundaries,to religious competitions between Muslims and Christians, and to political conflict among Vienna, Budapest, St. Petersburg, and the Porte (pp. 185-86). Such a geopolitical and historicalperspective allows him to go beyond the customary frameworkof ethnic competition. He also managedto overcome the difficulties in obtaining information,to ascertain that destalinization-through decreasing subEthnic Diversity and Conflict in Eastern servience to Moscow in favor of national Europe, edited by PETER F. SUGAR. Santa parties-boosted national communisms and Barbara: ABC-Clio, 1980. 553 pp. $22.50 resulted in policies that increasingly disencloth. franchised ethnic minorities. Thus, in Romania, Jews and Magyars, already deEDITH KURZWEIL prived of a common language, cultural heriRutgers University tage, separateinstitutions, and territory,were subjected to discriminationwhen Romanian Politics, history, religion, and traditionsare was decreed the lingua franca (p. 206), when the major forces impingingon Eastern Euro- non-Romanian street nameswere changed,and pean ethnicity, and these forces have led from when access to jobs and higher education fanationbuildingto genocide, and from peaceful vored Romanians. coexistence to warfare. How and when Instances, like those Gilberg provides, ilethnicityis likely to be used for direct political lustrating the contradictory effects of state ends, for the allocation of scarce resources, policies on members of minorities abound.
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And ethnic responses, depending upon the Religion group and the specific situation, rangedfrom acceptingthe loss of privilegeto forcible inte- American Denominational Organization: A to various forms of gration, from immigration Sociological View, edited by Ross P. ethnic decimation. The authorsalways supply SCHERER. Pasadena, CA: William Carey causal information, looking at outcomes Library, 1980. 378 pp. $14.95 paper. through historical and telescopic lenses; they also show how prejudicialstate action could WILLIAM H. SWATOS, JR. arouse dormantethnic feelings among the ar- St. Marks Episcopal Church, Silvis, Illinois ticulate members of a suppressed group. Ernest Gellner and Paul R. Brass focus on The publication of American Denomion the national Organization is to be roundly ethnicity in relationto industrialization, ensuing problems of economic competition applauded.This collection promises to make a and class distinctions, and on the location of significantcontributionto the sociology of reethnic groups during this process. But ligious organization in the contemporary whereas Brass is primarilyconcernedwith the United States, and editor Schererproves to be assertion of nationalism within national a competent master builderin the process. To boundaries (e.g., Croatians in Yugoslavia, this end he proposes a new viewpoint for Sudeten Germans in Czechoslovakia), which looking at denominations, which he terms at times ended up in populationtransfers(e.g., "open systems" theory. The essence of this Greek-Turkish and Greek-Bulgarian ex- approachis that in complex societies denomichanges after the First World War), and with nations function in, with, and as other human ethnic pluralism and intraclass competition social organizations,adjustingand readjusting under central authorities, Gellner focuses on themselves to fit ever-changing circumethnicity as class conflict within nations. But stances. Denominations, he says, constantly this is not the classical Marxist conflict, as face new "dilemmas" and so must continually Joshua A. Fishman points out, which consid- act to maintain"balance."Thus, a denominaers ethnicity as superfluous,undesirable,as a tion has a flexible ratherthan fixed character diversionary myth and a byproduct of eco- and is a "structurally fragile" coalition of nomics (p. 79). Because Marxism in Eastern interests. The essays expand upon and illusEurope has become the dominantideology of trate this general theoretical perspective. the state, the means of dominationratherthan While one might well wish that the connecof liberationof the masses, ethnicity is manip- tions between the essays and the "open sysulated, pushed under the rug-like any other tems" model were more explicit than they taboo subject. sometimes are, the book is solid throughout The editor succeeds admirablyin his aim to and will be a valuable resource to both acaintegrate conference papers and discussions demic and applied audiences. In spite of a certain programmaticbias, by having participantsrewrite their contributions. And there is much more about ethnic American Denominational Organization depeace and war than can be put into a short serves to be widely read, and read with spereview: valid comparisonsspanningthe globe, cial care by those least sympathetic to reliof inter- gious organizations.What it has to say should questions of politics, and information est to political and historical sociologists, and reshape the conventional sociological "wisto experts in other specific ethnic studies and dom"about organizedreligion, much of which in modernization. So we ought not to judge is groundedin studies from the nineteen-fifties this volume by its sleazy cover, or by the and -sixties. The Scherervolume demonstrates quality of its production; these reflect judg- that despite the fascination that cult-like ments of publishing rather than of scholarly movements have generatedover the last decqualities. Anyone who wants to know why ade, denominational religiosity remains the and an important and how ethnics melt into the various national "way"of the mainstream and pots, or melt away altogether, would benefit sociologically complex scene in the total picfrom reading this book. And in the process ture of American religion. One of the foibles he/she wouldfind out about"ethno-nationalism of popularsociology of religion(e.g., in intro[which]is a nationalismthat has failed to take ductory general texts) is that the "new relioff because it lacked sufficientgrowth to take gions"fad has skewed attentionaway from the it beyond the stage of semimodernity"(p. central tendencies of our dominant sociocultural religious behavior. Scherer and his col444).
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