LITERATURE REVIEWS

Books reviewed in this article:
A. Comments
B. Book Notes
Abney, Glenn and Thomas P Lauth The Politics of State and City Administration
Adams, William J and Christran Stoffaes, (eds) French Industrial Policy
Binkin, Martin, Military Technology and Defense Manpower
Elazar, aniel J Cities of the Prairie Revisited The Closing of the Metropolitan Frontier
Ginsberg, Benjamin The Captive Public How Mass Opinion Promotes State Power
Heath, Robert L and Richard Alan Nelson Issues Management Corporate Public Policymaking in an Information Society
Hunt, Morton Profiles of Social Research The Scientific Study of Human Interactions
Kaplan, Marshall and Peggy Cuciti (eds) The Great Society and itsLegacy wenty Years of U S Social Policy
Katz, Michael B In the Shadow of the Poorhouse A Social History of Welfare in America
Katzmann, Robert A. Institutional Disability The Sage of Transporation Policy for the Disabled
Liroff, Richard A Reformaing Air Pollution Regulation The Toil Trouble of EPA's Bubble
Lowi, Theodore J The Personal President Power Invested Promise Unflfilled
Mead, Walter J, Asbjorn Moseidjord, Dennis D Muraoka, and Philip E Sorenson Offshore Lands. Oil and Gas Leasing and Conservation on th Outer Continental Shelf
Muskie, Edmund, Kenneth Rush, and Kenneth W Thompson The President, the Congress and Foreign Policy
Openshaw, Stan Nuclear Power. Siting and Safety
Peters, B Guy American Public Policy Promise and Performance
Rosentraub, Mark S, (ed) Urban Policy Problems Federal Policy and Institutional Change
Story, Dale Industry, the State, and Public Policy in Mexico
Taylor, Ralph B, (ed) Urban Neighborhoods Research and Policy
Wesson, Robert and Heraldo Munoz, (eds) Latin American Views of U S Policy
Winston, Brian isunderstanding Media
Zurcher, Louis A, Milton L Boykin, and Hardy L Merritt Citizen Sailors in a Changing Society Policy Issues for Manning the United StatesNaval Reserve     

LITERATURE REVIEWS

A. Comments
B. Book Review Essay
Philip E Converse and Roy Pierce Political Representation France (Cambridge. MA and London Harvard University Press. 1986 ). 996 pp
Daniel Gaxie. ed, Explication du Vote (Paris Presses de la Fondation Nationale des Sciences Poiitlques. 1985 ). 450 pp
Jack Hayward. The State and the Market Economy industrial Patnotism and Economic lntervention in France (New York New York University Press, 1985 ). 267 pp
Howard Machin and Vincent Wright. eds, Economrc Policy-Making Under the Mitrerrand Presidency, 1981–1984 (New York St Martin's Press, 1985 ). 293 pp
C. Book Notes
Beldon, Joseph N Dirt Rich .
Brown, William P and Don F Hadwiger (eds) World Food Policies Toward Agricultural Interdependence
Weiss, Thomas G Multilateral Development Diplomacy in UNCTAD
Schultze, Charles L Other Times. Other Places Macroeconomic Lessons Form US and European History
Collingridge, David and Colin Reeve Science Speaks to Power The Role of Experts in Policymaking
Feller, Irwin Universities and State Governments A Study in Policy Analysis
Cawson, Alan Corporatism and Political Theory
Lefort, Claude The Political Forms of Modern Society Bureaucracy, Democracy, Totalitarianism
Lehne, Richard Casino Policy
Moorhouse, John C Electric Power Deregulation and the Public Interest
Wright, James D and Peter H Rossi Armed and Considered Dangerous A Survey of Felons and their Firearms
Kluegel, James R Beliefs About Inequality America's Views of What is and What Ought to Be
Raskin, Marcus G The Common Good Its Politics, Policies, and Philosophy
Schorr, Alvin L Common Decency Domestic Policies After Reagan
Davies, David G United States Tax and Tax Policy
Lee, Dwight R (ed) Taxation and the Deficit Economy Fiscal Policy and Capital Formation in the United States
Teplitz, Paul V and Stephen H Brooks Alternative Tax Proposals How the Numbers Add Up     

The intuitions of higher dimensional algebra for the study of structured space

Higher dimensional algebra frees mathematics from the restriction to a purely linear notation, in order to improve the modelling of geometry and so obtain more understanding and more modes of computation. It gives new tools for noncommutative, higher dimensional, local to global problems, through the notion of «algebraic inverse to subdivision». We explain the way these ideas arose for the writters, in extending first the classical notion of abstract group to abstract groupoid, in which composition is only partially defined, as in composing journeys, and which brings a spatial component to the usual group theory: An example from knot theory is used to explain how such algebra can be used to describe some structure of a space. The extension to dimension 2 uses compositions of squares in two directions, and the richness of the resulting algebra is shown by some 2-dimensional calculations. The difficulty of the jump from dimension 1 to dimension 2 is also illustrated by the comparison of the commutative square with the commutative cube-discussion of the latter requires new ideas. The importance of category theory is explained, and a range of current and potential applications of higher dimensional algebra indicated.