Hayden White: The Form of the Content

Hayden White's perhaps richest and most profoundly argued book, The Content of the Form, touches many nerves in the American historicalprofession. The entirety of the book, from its premises through its most thoughtful exegeses of historical writing, insists that linguistic form is the primary carrier of content in historical writing, indeed, in historical knowledge. This insistence on a respectful and careful attention tothe formal usages of nonfiction prose, truth-claiming language, goes well against the grain of American tastes. As de Tocqueville presciently and correctly predicted, when Americans take to literature in a serious way, they won't have much patience with precise matters of form.Hayden White's narrative theory has had uphill work to penetrate this pervasive indifference, especially among historians.
He has been joined in recent decades by Paul Ricoeur, whose Time andNarrative , beginning from different premises and a slightly different question, arrives at a sympathetic and complementary analysis of historical narrative. In spite of White's published hesitations about the political/philosophical tendencies of Ricoeur's work, I amconvinced that their books are mutually supporting and, in an important cultural sense, belong together.
Altogether, however, I do feel that the main import and justification of this presentessay must rest on my quite serious reading of Hayden White's best joke, a profound shaggy dog story about the historian monk of St. Gall.     

The Pattern of Migration With Variable Migration Cost

In this paper the role of migrant networks in determining patterns of out-migration is examined. Conditions under which migration equilibrium may permit multiple steady states are identified. The analysis discusses instances where migration generates its own demand and explains differences in migration propensities across potential sources of out-migration.     

Book reviews

The Essential Codex Mendoza. By FRANCES F. BERDAN and PATRICIA RIEFF ANA WALT. Berkeley and Los Angeles: The University of California Press, 1997. Pp. xiii, 268, 148.

Cruzados, mártires y beatos: Emplazamientos del cuerpo colonial. MARIO CESAREO. West Lafayette: Purdue University Press, 1995. Pp. xi, 201.

Dineros de ventura: La varia fortuna de la emigración a Indias (siglos XVI‐XVII). By CARLOS ALBERTO GONZALEZ SANCHEZ. Seville: Universidad de Sevilla, 1995. Pp. 277.

La administración como un fenómeno social. La justicia penal de la Ciudad de Quito (1650–1750). By TAMAR HERZOG. Madrid: Centro de Estudios Constitucionales, 1995. Pp. 352.

The Countryside in Colonial Latin America. Edited by LOUISA SCHELL HOBERMAN and SUSAN MIGDEN SOCOLOW. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1996. Pp. 295.

Peasants, Politics, and the Formation of Mexico's National State. By PETER F. GUARDINO. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1996. Pp. viii, 319.

Poder terrateniente, relaciones de producción y orden colonial. By EDUARDO AZCUY AMEGHINO et al. Buenos Aires: Fernando García Cambeiro, 1996. Pp. 259.

Storms Brewed in Other Men's World's: The Confrontation of Indians, Spanish, and French in the Southwest, 1540–1795. By ELIZABETH A. H. JOHN. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, [1975] 1996. Pp. 805.

The World Upside Down: Cross‐Cultural Contact and Conflict in Sixteenth‐Century Peru. By SUSAN ELIZABETH RAMIREZ. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1996. Pp. 234.

Architecture and Power in the Ancient Andes: The Archaeology of Public Buildings. By JERRY D. MOORE. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996. Pp. xiii, 256.

Las crónicas y los Andes. By FRANKLIN PEASE G. Y. Mexico: Fondo de Cultura Económica, 1995. Pp. 632.

The War with Spain in 1898. By DAVID F. TRASK. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, [1981] 1996. Pp. xiv, 654.

The Village and the Outside World in Golden Age Castile. Mobility and Migration in Everyday Rural Life. By DAVID E. VASSBERG: Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996. Pp. xvii, 253.     

Backyard Protest: Emergence, Expansion, and Persistence of a Local Hazardous Waste Controversy

The toxic waste dispute that is the subject of this article points out one of the troubling ironies of the modem environmental movement. Many groups and individual activists who promoted a national response to the discovery of thousands of toxic waste sites over a decade ago are now leading the struggle to prevent government-sponsored cleanups. This case study examines the evolution and dynamics of one community's pollution controversy, and then attempts to explain the way in which marginalized environmentalists were able to redefine the toxics debate. Finally, it shows how heal resistence to waste cleanups may shape the next round of environmental policymaking.     

HIERARCHY AND ‘HEROIC SOCIETY‘: MANAM VARIATIONS IN SEPIK SOCIAL STRUCTURE

Anthropologists have come to recognize that in addition to the prevalence of egalitarian relations, many New Guinea societies also exhibit elements of hierarchy as well. This article discusses the nature of hierarchy in some Sepik societies through the comparative analysis of the social structure of four Sepik area societies on the northeast coast of Papua New Guinea. Using Sahlins' definition of ‘heroic societies’ based upon a principle of ‘hierarchical solidarity’, the article argues that the form of hierarchy found in Manam Island society is different in type from that of the neighboring societies of Boroi, Murik and Wogeo. An additional diagnostic feature of heroic societies is what Sahlins refers to as ‘heroic history. In Manam the cultural form this takes is a ‘heroic’ variation of the myth of two brothers common throughout the area.