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Volume 11 - February 1992

Contents

Page 4 of 5

Review of Anita Gordon and David Suzuki, It's a Matter of Survival

Book Reviews

Book Reviews

  • Book Reviews: Leichter - Free To Be Foolish: Politics and Health Promotion in the United States and Great BritainHoward M. Leichter Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1991, 281 pp. US$35.00 cloth. ISBN 0-691-07867-X. Princeton University Press, 41 William St., Princeton, NJ 08540, USA.

  • Andrea L. Bonnicksen
  • Published online by Cambridge University Press:
    17 May 2016, pp. 290-292

  • The author is Professor of Political Science at Linfield College and Clinical Professor of Public Health and Preventive Medicine at Oregon Health Science University. In this book he traces a recent and “important shift in the debate over how people can maximize their chances of staying healthy” (p.7). Populations in both the United States and Great Britain for most of the century have regarded equitable access to health care as the basis for individual health. Within the last two decades, however, assumptions have shifted. Health is now thought to be a preventive exercise to be secured by reducing dangerous and foolish behaviors. In seeking to regulate dangerous behaviors of citizens, policymakers confront deeply seated values of individualism and choice.

    Leichter advances the thesis that policies that regulate life-styles are fundamentally different from other health policies. As a consequence, a distinct framework for evaluation is necessary, which he presents and elaborates upon throughout the book. He uses historical experiences in two countries—the United States and Great Britain—to develop and refine his thesis.

    Following historical overviews of the two health revolutions (access to health care and personal life-style monitoring), Leichter deals with four areas in which governments have sought to limit individual activities: smoking, alcohol control, road safety, and behaviors relating to AIDS. In his final chapter he evaluates “when and under what circumstances [it is] appropriate for the state to intervene in life-style decisions” (p. 31). This literate book is supplemented by four figures and thirteen tables.

Review of Howard M. Leichter, Free to be Foolish: Politics and Health Promotion in the United States and Great Britain

Book Reviews

  • Book Reviews: Leichter

  • Richard C. Weston
  • Published online by Cambridge University Press:
    17 May 2016, pp. 292-293

  • Government policy can further the health of the public in four ways, notes Howard Leichter: “It can support biomedical research; improve, guarantee, or subsidize access to health care; regulate environmental and product hazards; and encourage people, through education or regulation, to adopt more healthy life-styles” (p. 6).

Book Reviews

  • Book Reviews: Masters & Gruter

  • Joseph Losco
  • Published online by Cambridge University Press:
    17 May 2016, pp. 134-136

  • Précis. Collected in this volume are the proceedings of the Fourth Monterey Dunes Conference on the Sense of Justice at the Gruter Institute. Contributors from law, political science, ethology, the biobehavioral sciences and psychology explore the concept of justice from the vantage points of its universal and particularistic, cognitive and emotional, innate and cultural properties.

  • Book Reviews: Van Der Dennen & Falger

  • Joseph Losco
  • Published online by Cambridge University Press:
    17 May 2016, pp. 139-141

  • Précis. This volume explores the contributions of sociobiology for an understanding of a wide range of conflictual behaviors among humans. While specifically focusing upon inclusive fitness theory, contributing authors forge ties between sociobiological propositions and data on conflict and cooperation from a wide range of disciplines, including sociology, social psychology, and political science, among others.

Review of Mary Maxwell (ed.), The Sociobiological Imagination

Book Reviews

  • A Most Welcome Addition to Instruction

  • Dave Ivers
  • Published online by Cambridge University Press:
    17 May 2016, pp. 296-297

  • Mary Maxwell, in The Sociobiological Imagination, sets an admirable array of tasks: “to acknowledge the remarkablywide influence ofa central idea, to demonstrate that the research of human biology takes place in disparate fields, and to introduce the major principles of sociobiology” (p. 9). Her unstated task is to help legitimate the presence of the paradigm of evolutionary biology in the social sciences by allowing practitioners in many social disciplines to demonstrate the usefulness of this paradigm in their work. In all these endeavors, I think she succeeds.

Review of Mary Maxwell (ed.) The Sociobiological Imagination

Book Reviews

  • Strong Planks, Weak Platform

  • Linda Mealey
  • Published online by Cambridge University Press:
    17 May 2016, pp. 297-298

  • Mary Maxwell set out to accomplish three things with this book: to “demonstrate the wide influence sociobiology has had on other academic disciplines,” “to show that the majority of developments in human sociobiology have in fact taken place in various disciplines outside of biology,” and “to introduce the major principles of sociobiology” (pp. 1-2, reiterated p. 9). To do this, she enlisted a set of expert sociobiologists who work in a variety of academic areas and asked each of them to contribute a chapter demonstrating the impact ofsociobiology in their field. Despite the expert help and the fact that the overall quality of each contribution is excellent, Maxwell has failed to achieve any of her three goals.

Book Reviews

Other

News

  • NEWS AND ANNOUNCEMENTS

  • Published online by Cambridge University Press:
    17 May 2016, p. 306
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Book Reviews

  • Book Reviews: Wiegele

  • Carol Barner-Barry
  • Published online by Cambridge University Press:
    17 May 2016, pp. 145-147

  • Précis. In this volume, Thomas Wiegele addresses “current developments in biotechnology which in turn can be used to fashion a meaningful inclusion of biotechnology into theories about the behavior of nations” (p. 3). The primary audience is scholars of international relations. There are, however, two other intended audiences: foreign policy-makers and students (both graduate and undergraduate). The general tone aims to be objective, rather than polemical, despite the “political contentiousness” (p. 5) of the subject. The author's assumptions are that most readers will be “conversant with established theoretical and policy approaches in international relations” (p. 4) and that the book will not be used as a general textbook for the study of international relations.

Front Matter

Book Reviews

  • Nexus for the Twenty-First Century

  • Norine E. Noonan
  • Published online by Cambridge University Press:
    17 May 2016, pp. 149-150
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Back Matter

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