A WAY OF SEEING

These essays have a magazine column ring to them limited in depth but nicely balanced, thoughtful but not demanding, familiar but not intimate, with a general tone of challenge, uplift, and measured optimism—not surprising, since they have appeared as a regular feature in Redbook over the past eight years. Reflections on the private and public good from an anthropological viewpoint, they place the issues of contemporary interest in a broader perspective (the generation gap and student power, small communities and world community, crowding and privacy, population control and conservation, etc.) and evaluate the more enduring concerns in their current contexts (religion, morality, friendship, love, and marriage). There are some bold proposals—universal national service, a two-stage marriage system—worthy of an advocate of legalized marijuana, but they are submerged in a general sea of reassuring reasonableness. Traditionalists will certainly be pacified by the staid conception of the sex roles exhibited in several of the authors' pieces and in the two dialogues with young married women. The collection closes in the field with a revisit to New Guinea, leaving many enlightened insights but no great impact.