Theodore Caplow

All Faithful People was first published in 1983. Minnesota Archive Editions uses digital technology to make long-unavailable books once again accessible, and are published unaltered from the original University of Minnesota Press editions. In 1924 Robert and Helen Lynd went to Middletown (Muncie, Indiana) to study American institutions and values. The results of their work are the classic studies Middletown (1929) and Middletown in Transition (1937). In the late 1970s a team of social scientists returned to Middletown to gauge the changes that have taken place in the fifty years since the Lynds' first visit. The Middletown III Project, by replicating the earlier work, in some cases by using the same questions, provides an unprecedented portrait of a small American town as it adapts to changing times. Its first report, Middletown Families, was published by Minnesota in 1982. This book explores the role of religion in the life of Middletown. Using the Lynds' magnificent cache of empirical data as a base, social scientists on the Middletown III Project attempted to gauge how religious beliefs and practices have changed. For the most part, their findings show that the current perception of a trend toward a more secular society is not true. In Middletown, religion seems to be more important than ever. All Faithful People also covers the history of Middletown's churches, the differences between the town's Protestants and Catholics, religious participation among young people, and the role in Middletown life of private devotions and public rituals. In conclusion, the authors of All Faithful People evaluate Middletown as a representative community. They attempt to explain the myth of the death of organized religion, and briefly compare religion in America to religion in other Western countries. Fifty years after the Lynds first made Middletown famous, a team of social scientists returned to find out how American values have changed. This, their second report, focuses on religion. What does religion mean to Middletown today? Has America become a secular society? Those are some of the questions discussed in All Faithful People.

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"This volume is a must for anyone interested in academic problems and will produce the emotion of recognition in those concerned, and the emotion of surprise in those outside the field."-Los Angeles Times "Professors Caplow and McGee have given scholarly respectability to what many a professor has long suspected: Competition in the academic marketplace is as severe as in the business world. [Their book] might come to have the same function for the professor as Machiavelli's work had for ambitious princes."-Midwest Journal of Political Science The Academic Marketplace is a straightforward, hard-hitting exposu of the American university. Caplow and McGee consider all the working parts of the system and assess their suitability to the professed purpose. Their report on the actualities, myths, and consequences of routines thus amounts to an anatomy of an institution-an anatomy that does not present a pretty picture. We learn, for example, that the chief criteria used in making appointments are prestige and compatibility, not teaching ability. The authors describe the precipitous decline in teaching loads and then explain how this tendency is related to the new seller's market, on the one hand, and to the extravagantly indeterminate structure of the university as an institution, on the other. Not only is the temper judicious, the facts well gathered and competently marshaled, but the expression of results is invariably lucid. In a new introduction, the authors sort out fact from legend and discern trends, they address the validity of their own research methods and the applicability of their original findings to today's academic marketplace. They observe that the essential commodity offered in the academic marketplace is still the same-the mysterious intangible called prestige, by which universities, colleges, departments, disciplines, fields of inquiry, journals, and ultimately faculty candidates are ranked from high to low, and raised up and cast down accordingly.

In the closing days of World War II, scientists working for the U. S. government invented nuclear explosives by splitting the atoms of heavy metals. Germany had already surrendered, but the United States and its allies remained at war with Japan. In the summer of 1945, the Japanese city of Hiroshima was flattened by a single nuclear bomb. A second bombing occurred just a few days later, decimating the city of Nagasaki. These were the first nuclear weapons ever used in war. And - so far - they are the last. Since then, tens of thousands of nuclear weapons have been manufactured and deployed by governments around the world. Many of these weapons are much more powerful than the atomic bombs that destroyed the two Japanese cities. None have been used so far, and the absence of nuclear war among nations armed to the teeth with nuclear weapons is a great mystery. While the threat of a nuclear attack on the United States has receded, the possibility of a nuclear attack on an American city by terrorists has taken its place in our official nightmares. So far, no terrorist group has made a serious effort to buy, steal, or build a nuclear weapon. The absence of nuclear terrorism in a world swarming with fanatical terrorists is another great mystery. The slippery slope to a nuclear Armageddon has been present for more than sixty years. In secure locations in Washington, Moscow, Beijing, London, and Paris, there are buttons to push than could put an end to human civilization, but these buttons have never been pushed. Why not? What has so far kept us safe from these mortal dangers? Those are the questions that Caplow asks and answers in Armageddon Postponed.

In the closing days of World War II, scientists working for the U. S. government invented nuclear explosives by splitting the atoms of heavy metals. Germany had already surrendered, but the United States and its allies remained at war with Japan. In the summer of 1945, the Japanese city of Hiroshima was flattened by a single nuclear bomb. A second bombing occurred just a few days later, decimating the city of Nagasaki. These were the first nuclear weapons ever used in war. And - so far - they are the last. Since then, tens of thousands of nuclear weapons have been manufactured and deployed by governments around the world. Many of these weapons are much more powerful than the atomic bombs that destroyed the two Japanese cities. None have been used so far, and the absence of nuclear war among nations armed to the teeth with nuclear weapons is a great mystery. While the threat of a nuclear attack on the United States has receded, the possibility of a nuclear attack on an American city by terrorists has taken its place in our official nightmares. So far, no terrorist group has made a serious effort to buy, steal, or build a nuclear weapon. The absence of nuclear terrorism in a world swarming with fanatical terrorists is another great mystery. The slippery slope to a nuclear Armageddon has been present for more than sixty years. In secure locations in Washington, Moscow, Beijing, London, and Paris, there are buttons to push than could put an end to human civilization, but these buttons have never been pushed. Why not? What has so far kept us safe from these mortal dangers? Those are the questions that Caplow asks and answers in Armageddon Postponed.

Forbidden Wars proposes to explain why no nuclear weapon has been fired in anger since 1945, why no nuclear weapon has ever been detonated by accident, why terrorists have made no serious attempt to acquire nuclear weapons, and why the Cold War between the United States and the Soviet Union never broke out into a real war. All of these remarkable non-events flow from a set of unwritten but compelling rules for war-making that appeared spontaneously after the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki-along with a taboo against any further use of nuclear weapons-which have so far been universally respected. The most important effect of these rules is that every nation with a nuclear arsenal is virtually immune to attack by the armed forces of any other nation. The same rules seem to explain the global spread of insurgencies and the successes and failures of the non-proliferation regime. These developments are not the result of a conventional understanding of nuclear deterrence, but instead are based on the well-documented history of armed conflict in the world during the past sixty years. Forbidden Wars presents a unique insight that casts new light on America's foreign policy.

The authors, using these goals as a checklist, found that each of the seven states performs well in some areas and badly in others. They discovered that all states approached these goals in a style shaped by their own history and, in particular, by how they have been affected by the troubles of the twentieth century. Their investigations offer a new, informative way of looking at these nation states and detail the social and political conditions in each state. Contributors include Theodore Caplow, Salustiano Del Campo (Royal Academy of Political and Social Science, Madrid), Nikolai Genov (Bulgaria Academy of Sciences), Karl-Otto Hondrich (Goethe University), Simon Langlois (Universite de Laval), Alberto Martinelli (University of Milan), and Henri Mendras (OFCE, Paris).

The authors, using these goals as a checklist, found that each of the seven states performs well in some areas and badly in others. They discovered that all states approached these goals in a style shaped by their own history and, in particular, by how they have been affected by the troubles of the twentieth century. Their investigations offer a new, informative way of looking at these nation states and detail the social and political conditions in each state. Contributors include Theodore Caplow, Salustiano Del Campo (Royal Academy of Political and Social Science, Madrid), Nikolai Genov (Bulgaria Academy of Sciences), Karl-Otto Hondrich (Goethe University), Simon Langlois (Universite de Laval), Alberto Martinelli (University of Milan), and Henri Mendras (OFCE, Paris).

War and peace are as important as other institutions- science, politics, family, economy, religion, etc.- but rarely receive the same level of sociological attention. Systems of War and Peace covers this gap by presenting a coherent framework for understanding why and how wars start and end; what military organizations are, how they function, and where they came from; plus, how peace has been achieved in the past and how it can be achieved in the future. The balance of topics is intended to provide a sufficient basis for understanding the whole spectrum of violent social conflict and the reasons why some peace efforts have failed and others have succeeded. The second edition has been updated to include recent developments and new topics. Since the first edition in 1994, there have been no international wars, but there has been a host of rebellions, civil wars, interventions, and terrorist attacks. At the same time, some conflicts have abated and peacemaking attempts have been ongoing in many venues. A number of topics neglected in the first edition, such as sexuality in the military, have been added.

"This volume is a must for anyone interested in academic problems and will produce the emotion of recognition in those concerned, and the emotion of surprise in those outside the field."-Los Angeles Times "Professors Caplow and McGee have given scholarly respectability to what many a professor has long suspected: Competition in the academic marketplace is as severe as in the business world. [Their book] might come to have the same function for the professor as Machiavelli's work had for ambitious princes."-Midwest Journal of Political Science The Academic Marketplace is a straightforward, hard-hitting exposu of the American university. Caplow and McGee consider all the working parts of the system and assess their suitability to the professed purpose. Their report on the actualities, myths, and consequences of routines thus amounts to an anatomy of an institution-an anatomy that does not present a pretty picture. We learn, for example, that the chief criteria used in making appointments are prestige and compatibility, not teaching ability. The authors describe the precipitous decline in teaching loads and then explain how this tendency is related to the new seller's market, on the one hand, and to the extravagantly indeterminate structure of the university as an institution, on the other. Not only is the temper judicious, the facts well gathered and competently marshaled, but the expression of results is invariably lucid. In a new introduction, the authors sort out fact from legend and discern trends, they address the validity of their own research methods and the applicability of their original findings to today's academic marketplace. They observe that the essential commodity offered in the academic marketplace is still the same-the mysterious intangible called prestige, by which universities, colleges, departments, disciplines, fields of inquiry, journals, and ultimately faculty candidates are ranked from high to low, and raised up and cast down accordingly.

Most history tells the story of the past through anecdotes, but anecdotes do not always present an accurate or complete picture. There is another way to look at history. The rise of widespread, systematic data collection in the twentieth centurythe first measured centuryallows us to examine the past 100 years with unprecedented clarity. Now, The First Measured Century uses social data to tell us what happened to everyday Americans in the twentieth century. Whether the topic is politics, sexual behavior, economics, immigration, living arrangements, religion, longevity, or public opinion, this myth-busting popular reference work shows that the facts often turn out to be more interesting than the fiction. A special feature of The First Measured Century is original 1999 research that builds on the landmark sociological study of the 1920s, "Middletown." With survey results that span more than seven decades, The First Measured Century offers the longest timeline of consistent attitudinal data anywhere. This panorama of the American twentieth century unfolds in a series of key trends, each explained in a one-page essay written for the general reader and illustrated by one or more vibrantly colored charts on the facing page. The First Measured Century is an essential tool for anyone interested in journalism, economics, history, political science, sociology, demography, public relations, business, the arts, or public policy.

During the past 20 years, the great human service systems of the United States have suffered a spectacular decline in efficiency and effectiveness along with a spectacular increase in costs. The deficiencies threaten all of us. This work offers an original and penetrating explanation of how the problems in these systems developed, how they are interconnected, and how they might be remedied. The book does not confine itself to identifying perverse incentives, but assesses in detail the feasibility of removing or alleviating them in each of the systems considered.

Many of the trends reflect the vigorous continuation of what Tocqueville called "the gradual progress of equality." Much of this progress resulted from successful government programs to reduce social inequality. These same programs expanded the role of government as the initiator and manager of social change. The enlargement of government functions that began in the 1960s and continues to this day, together with corporate and organizational consolidation in the private sector, changed the United States from a decentralized to a highly centralized nation. The transition has been uncomfortable, partly because centralization is not wholly compatible with other democratic values, and partly because American political institutions were originally designed to thwart centralization. This volume documents the trends involved in this transformation.

The Sociology of Work was first published in 1954. Minnesota Archive Editions uses digital technology to make long-unavailable books once again accessible, and are published unaltered from the original University of Minnesota Press editions. What are the effects of working conditions, rewards, and habits upon the institution of the family? What are the typical forms of occupational segregation, and what are the effects of such segregation upon the general society? How are the social roles appropriate to each occupation created and sustained? What social processes determine the evolution of occupational groupings and the distribution of population among them? This work, a basic study in occupational sociology, throws light on such questions as these. Professor Caplow describes the occupational system with reference to specialization, occupational status, the formation of professions, mobility, the patterning of individual careers, the occupations of women, and the prospects for continued improvement of working conditions. He draws upon hundreds of empirical studies for his discussions. The book has been warmly received by reviewers and readers. Robert Dublin commented in the American Journal of Sociology: "This volume will long stand as a sourcebook of hypotheses and thesis topics for students of industrial sociology." Writing in the American Sociological Review, George Caspar Homans called it "a wide-ranging and hard-headed study of American jobs, their place and nature." Robert C. Stone said in Social Forces: "The work is a major contribution to the study of social structure." The many specialist workers who are concerned with occupational problems—industrial and applied psychologists, personnel and guidance workers, wage economists, labor relations experts, and others—will find this a valuable reference work. It is, of course, pertinent to the interests of general sociologists and anthropologists, and is used as a text in a number of courses in occupational sociology.