A number of Russell Sage Foundation publications were featured in the March issue of Contemporary Sociology. Below are synopses of the books reviewed.

Family Consequences of Children’s Disabilities
By Dennis Hogan

The first comprehensive account of families of children with disabilities, Hogan’s book examines the financial and emotional costs of raising a child with a disability. Reviewer Gary Albrecht (University of Illinois at Chicago) states, “This volume sets a standard for accessible, contemporary scholarship which will appeal to researchers, students, and the general public alike.” He notes that “like much research with an edge,” Hogan’s work is informed by his own experiences—in this case, growing up with a disabled sibling. Family Consequences of Children’s Disabilities further employs data culled from seven national surveys and interviews with twenty-four mothers of children with disabilities, asking them questions about their family life, social supports, and how other children in the home were faring. As Albrecht concludes, “This is a thought-provoking book that confirms some common sense notions with data but surprises with analyses of the fine texture of family structure and relationships.”

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The Broken Table: The Detroit Newspaper Strike and the State of American Labor
By Chris Rhomberg

In The Broken Table, Chris Rhomberg assesses the 1995 Detroit newspaper strike as a historic collision of two opposing forces: a system in place since the New Deal governing disputes between labor and management, and decades of increasingly aggressive corporate efforts to eliminate unions. As a consequence, one of the fundamental institutions of American labor relations—the negotiation table—was broken, Rhomberg argues. A new review of the book by Benjamin Lind (National Research University, Moscow) praises Rhomberg’s research as “an extremely thorough and multifaceted take on the [Detroit] strike.” As Lind points out, The Broken Table “offers compelling evidence on the limits of collective bargaining in the current era” and provides a comprehensive account of one of the most significant strike of the 1990s.

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American Memories: Atrocities and the Law
By Joachim J. Savelsberg and Ryan D. King

How does the United States remember its own and other countries’ wartime atrocities? Savelsberg and King explore American collective memory around some of the dark episodes in its history and show how institutional responses to such crimes, including trials and tribunals, help shape memories and perhaps even impede future violence. Reviewing American Memories, Wenona Rymond-Richmond (University of Massachusetts, Amherst) states, “Savelsberg and King resourcefully convert diverse and readily available information…into relevant data” in order to show how the law plays a vital role in determining how the U.S. collectively comes to terms with its past war crimes. Rymond-Richmond praises in particular the authors’ comparative approach to assessing the U.S.’s emphasis on individual accountability alongside countries like Germany, which have emphasized state failure for historical atrocities.

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Asian American Political Participation: Emerging Constituents and Their Political Identities
By Janelle Wong, S. Karthick Ramakrishnan, Taeku Lee, and Jane Junn

Dina Okamoto’s (University of California, Davis) review of Asian American Political Participation calls the book “a must-read for scholars, students, and policy makers alike.” As the most comprehensive study to date of Asian American political behavior, the book examines such key measures as voting, political donations, community organizing, and political protests. The authors explore why some groups participate while others do not, why certain civic activities are deemed preferable to others, and why Asian socioeconomic advantage has so far not led to increased political clout.

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