Democracy in Justice Kennedy's America: Reading Obergefell with Tocqueville

Justice Anthony Kennedy cites Alexis de Tocqueville in support of the majority opinion in Obergefell v. Hodges. But Kennedy's citation leaves much out of Tocqueville's original text. Looking at what Kennedy erases in his quotation of Tocqueville indicates some of the broader cultural and historic erasures that are present in the Obergefell decision (and in the Supreme Court's latter-day treatment of marriage and the family in general). Standing Obergefell next to Tocqueville yields suggestive possibilities for evaluating the evolution of recent Supreme Court jurisprudence—and recent American political thought, more generally speaking—on questions of marriage and family. Specifically, reading Obergefell with Tocqueville reveals the intellectual and political weakness of the contemporary Supreme Court.     

Book Reviews

‘WE GATHER TOGETHER’: FOOD AND FESTIVAL IN AMERICAN LIFE. Edited by THEODORE H. HUMPHREY and LIN T. HUMPHREY. Utah State University Press, 1991. 289pp. $17.95 paper, ISBN 0-87421-155-7. Reviewed by Jennifer Chandler.

SPOKEN IN JEST. Edited by Gillian Bennett. Sheffield Academic Press, Sheffield, 1992. ISBN 1850752575. 296pp., 3 plates, 22 figures. £25 (cloth). Reviewed by Susan Storrier.

WEDDING CAKES AND CULTURAL HISTORY by SIMON CHARSLEY. Routledge, London, 1992. 162pp. 4 illustrations. ISBN 0-415-02648-2 (hbk); 0-415-02649-0 (pbk). Reviewed by George Monger.

NORSE MYTHS. By R. I. PAGE. London: British Museum Press, 1990. 80pp. £5.95. ISBN 0 7141 2062 6. Reviewed by Carolyne Larrington.

DIE MAUS IM JUMBO-JET: NEUE SAGENHAFTE GESCHICHTEN VON HEUTE. By ROLF WILHELM BREDNICH, Beck'sche Reihe 435. München: Beck, 1991. 143 pp. Reviewed by W. F. H. Nicolaisen.

THE RISE OF MAGIC IN EARLY MEDIEVAL EUROPE by VALERIE J. FLINT. Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1991. 452 pp. ISBN 0-19-820093-5. Reviewed by Jacqueline Simpson.

INTERNATIONAL PROVERB SCHOLARSHIP: AN ANNOTATED BIBLIOGRAPHY. SUPPLEMENT I (1800–1981). WOLFGANG MIEDER. Garland Publishing Inc., New York and London, 1990. 436 pp. Reviewed by Malcolm Jones.

THE CONCISE OXFORD DICTIONARY OF PROVERBS. Ed. JOHN SIMPSON and JENNIFER SPEAKE. Oxford University Press, Oxford and New York (2nd ed.), 1992. 316 pp. ISBN 0-19-866177-0. Reviewed by Malcolm Jones.

A DICTIONARY OF AMERICAN PROVERBS. Ed. WOLFGANG MIEDER, S. A. KINGSBURY and K. B. HARDER. Oxford University Press, Oxford and New York, 1992. 710 pp. £27.50. ISBN 0-19-505399-0. Reviewed by Malcolm Jones.

ETHNIC MUSIC ON RECORDS. By RICHARD K. SPOTTSWOOD. University of Illinois Press, 1990. Volumes 1-7. Pp. 4,347. Illustrated. ISBN 0-252-01718-8 (set). Reviewed by Gordon Ashman.

DUNBAR THE MAKAR. By PRISCILLA BAWCUTT. Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1992. 196pp. £50. ISBN 0-19-812963-7. Reviewed by Jacqueline Simpson.

SIGNS FROM THE ANCESTORS by M. JANE YOUNG, 1990. Reviewed by Donald Taylor.

THE NIGHTWAY by JAMES C FARIS, 1990. Reviewed by Donald Taylor.

FORMS OF DEFORMITY. By LYNN HOLDEN. Journal for the Study of the Old Testament Supplement Series 131. Sheffield: JSOT Press, 1991. 370pp. Appendix and bibliography. ISBN 1-85074-327-X. £40. Reviewed by Jennifer Chandler.

CITY, MARRIAGE, TOURNAMENT ARTS OF RULE IN LATE MEDIEVAL SCOTLAND. By LOUISE OLGA FRADENBURG. University of Wisconsin Press, 1991. 390pp, ill. ISBN 0-299-12954-3. Reviewed by Sandra Billington.

GEORGE EWART EVANS. By GARETH WILLIAMS. Writers of Wales Series, University of Wales Press, Cardiff, 1991. 93pp. £3.50. Reviewed by Trefor M. Owen.     

A case history in the transformation of rural Europe: Fuenterrabía

Davydd J. Greenwood. Unrewarding Wealth: The Commercialization and Collapse of Agriculture in a Spanish Basque Town. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1976. x + 223 pp. Tables, figures, epilogue, notes, references, appendix, and index. $16.95.     

Woodland Pottery Function,Cooking, and Diet in the Upper Great Lakes of North America

A multidimensional approach to functional analysis was employed to examine pottery use, cooking, and subsistence in pre-European North American contexts. A variety of analytic techniques were applied to ceramic assemblages from two sites on the south shore of Lake Superior: the Middle Woodland Naomikong Point site and the Late Woodland Sand Point site. The analyses of both technical attributes and use-alteration traces suggest that a majority of pottery vessels from these sites were used for cooking throughout the Woodland period. Lipid residue analysis corroborates traditional subsistence information but specifies which foods were cooked in pottery vessels. Vessel size varies according to context rather than by time or by function, with larger vessels associated with ritual areas and smaller vessels originating from domestic spheres, a trend potentially related to feasting behavior. Interior carbonization patterns change in frequency between the Middle and Late Woodland periods, suggesting a shift in cooking and possibly subsistence practices.