Book reviews

MAGIC AND RELIGION. By ANDREW LANG. Longmans, 10s. 6d.

THE EARLY AGE OF GREECE. By W. RIDGEWAY, Disney Professor of Archæology in the University of Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 21s.

MYTHS OF GREECE. By GEORGE ST. CLAIR. 2 vols. Williams and Norgate.

THE REALMS OF THE EGYPTIAN DEAD. By K. A. WIEDEMANN. London: David Nutt. 1901. Reviewed by A. H. Sayce.

THE ETHNO-BOTANY OF THE COAHUILLA INDIANS OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA. By DAVID PRESCOTT BARROWS. Chicago University Press. 1900. Reviewed by E. Sidney Hartland.

INDIAN STORY AND SONG FROM NORTH AMERICA. By ALICE C. FLETCHER. Boston : Small, Maynard, and Co. 1900. Reviewed by E. Sidney Hartland.

CONTES DES LANDES ET DES GRÈVES. By PAUL SÉBILLOT. Rennes: Hyacinthe Caillière. 1900. Reviewed by E. Sidney Hartland.

LES COQUILLAGES DE MER. By PAUL SÉBILLOT. Paris: Maisonneuve. 1900. Reviewed by E. Sidney Hartland.

LE FOLK-LORE DES PÊCHEURS. By PAUL SÉBILLOT. Paris: Maisonneuve. 1901. Reviewed by E. Sidney Hartland.

TRADIZIONI POPOLARI PISTOIESI. RACCONTI POPOLARI PISTOIESI IN VERNACOLO PISTOIESI. Raccolti e pubblicati da RUDOLFO NERUCCI, Pistoia. 1901. Reviewed by E. Sidney Hartland.

THE WIFE OF BATH'S TALE; ITS SOURCES AND ANALOGUES. By G. H. MAYNADIER, Instructor in English at Harvard University. (Grimm's Library. Vol. xiii.) Reviewed by Jessie L. Weston.

THE JUNIOR TEMPLE READER. By CLARA L. THOMPSON and E. E. SPEIGHT. Horace Marshall, 1s. 6d.

POPULAR STUDIES IN MYTHOLOGY AND FOLKLORE. No. 10. THE ROMANCE CYCLE OF CHARLEMAGNE AND HIS PEERS. By JESSIE L. WESTON. D. Nutt. 6d.     

Commentary Animal Domestication: Toward a Definition

Antoine de Saint-Exupéry was a pioneering French aviator who helped to open airmail routes in North Africa and South America during the interwar years of the early twentieth century. He was also a celebrated author who described his piloting experiences and the relations between aviation, society and human development in several popular books. Saint-Exupéry's writings contain vivid representations of landscapes, places and people from the novel perspective of the airborne observer. Based on analysis of the revised editions of most of the English-language translations of Saint-Exupéry's published works, this article reveals that his writings contain a distinctive ‘geography from above’ in which landscapes and places are culturally constructed and myths about various ‘others’ are reproduced. Such a view was important: it allowed powerful visualisations to be created and communicated, and its expressions accompanied and legitimated the imperial expropriation of land.     

Alcohol Studies and Anthropology: Broadening the Venture

Caplan, Pat, ed. The Cultural Construction of Sexuality. London: Tav‐istock, 1987. xi + 304 pp. including name and subject indexes. $44.00 cloth; $16.95 paper.

Williams, Walter L. The Spirit and the Flesh: Sexual Diversity in American Indian Culture. Boston: Beacon Press, 1986. xi + 344 pp. including 16 black‐and‐white plates, bibliography, and index. $21.95 cloth.     

Hutterites forever

John A. Hostetler. Hutterite Society. Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1974. xiv + 403 pp. Tables, maps, charts, illustrations, appendices, selected bibliography, and index. $14.00.     

Talcott Parsons as translator of Max Weber's basic sociological categories

The first four chapters of Max Weber's Economy and Society presented by Talcott Parsons in 1947 as Theory of Social and Economic Organization present a coherent and complete analysis of social, economic and political structures based upon a consistent theory of social action and its understanding. Parsons did not see them this way. His lengthy introduction sought to insert them into his own “action frame of reference”, and his rearrangement of the text made it difficult for a reader to understand why it was constructed the way that it is. This essay describes how Parsons came to be principal translator and editor of the text, examines the changes that he made to it, and links his editorial practice to the analytical procedures that he followed in his Structure of Social Action.