Theodore Caplow - Böcker

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.

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.

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.

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.

"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.

Middletown Families was first published in 1985. 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.Fifty years after publication of Robert and Helen Lloyd's classic studies, Middletown (1929) and Middletown in Transition (1937), the Middletown III Project picked up and continued their exploration of American values and institutions. By duplicating the original studies - in many cases by using the same questions - this team of social scientists attempted to gauge the changes that had taken place in Muncie, Indiana, since the 1920s. In Middletown Families, the first book to emerge from this project, Theodore Caplow and his colleagues reveal that many widely discussed changes in family life, such as the breakdown of traditional male/female roles, increased conflict between parents and children, and disintegration of extended family ties, are more perceived than actual. Their evidence suggests that the Middletown family seems to be stronger and more tolerant, with closer bonds and greater marital satisfaction than fifty years ago. Instead of breaking it apart, the pressures of modern society may have drawn the family closer together.

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.

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.