Times Square, in its heyday, expressed American culture in the moment of vivid change. A stellar group of critics and scholars examines this transitional moment in Inventing Times Square, a study of the development of New York's central entertainment district. A fascinating visit to Times Square, from its christening in 1905 to its eventual decline after the Depression, the book explores the colorful configuration of institutions and cultural practices that propelled Times Square from a local and regional entertainment center to a national cultural marketplace.

Changes in the economy, in religion, in leisure culture, and in aesthetics gave birth to a geographical space that fostered Vaudeville and Tin Pan Alley, Flo Ziegfeld and Billy Rose, the spectacle of the Hippodrome and the bright lights of the Great White Way. Out of this same place eventually came national network radio and many Hollywood films. Though conceived as a public space, Times Square was quickly transformed into a commercial center. Power brokers wielded their influence on a public ready to succumb to consumerism. Theatrical entertainment  became a large-scale national business based in, and operated out of, Times Square. A new commercial aesthetic travelled with Joseph Urban from Vienna to Times Square to Palm Beach, bringing to society a sophisticated style that will forever say "Broadway."

Times Square as the "center of the universe" had its darker sides as well, for it was the testing ground for a new morality. The packaging of sexuality on the stage gave it legitimacy on the streets, as hotels and sidewalks became the province of female prostitution, male hustling, and pornography.

At the center of New York City, Times Square's commercial activities gave full rein to urban appetites and fantasies, and challenged and defied the norms of behavior that prevailed elsewhere in the city. Cultural history at its finest, Inventing Times Square portrays the vibrant convergence of social and economic forces on Forty-second Street.

WILLIAM R. TAYLOR teaches history at State University of New York at Stony Brook and is program director of the New York Institute for the Humanities at New York University.

CONTRIBUTORS: Jean-Christophe Agnew, Betsy Blackmar, Peter Buckley, George Chauncey Jr., Peter A. Davis, Lewis A. Erenberg, Richard Wightman Fox, Philip Furia, Timothy J. Gilfoyle, Gregory Gilmartin, David Hammack, Ada Louise Huxtable, Margaret Knapp, Eric Lampard, William R. Leach, Brooks McNamara, William Wood Register Jr., Laurence Senelick, Robert W. Snyder, William R. Taylor.

The social survey has become an essential tool in modern society, providing crucial measurements of social change, describing social life, and guiding government policy. But the validity of surveys is fragile and depends ultimately upon the accuracy of answers to survey questions. As our dependence on surveys grows, so too have questions about the accuracy of survey responses.

Authored by a group of experts in cognitive psychology, linguistics, and survey research, Questions About Questions provides a broad review of the survey response problem. Examining the cognitive and social processes that influence the answers to questions, the book first takes up the problem of meaning and demonstrates that a respondent must share the survey researcher’s intended meaning of a question if the response is to be revealing and informative. The book then turns to an examination of memory. It provides a framework for understanding the processes that can introduce errors into retrospective reports, useful guidance on when those reports are more or less trustworthy, and investigates techniques for the improvement of such reports. Questions about the rigid standardization imposed on the survey interview receive a thorough airing as the authors show how traditional survey formats violate the usual norms of conversational behavior and potentially endanger the validity of the data collected.

Synthesizing the work of the Social Science Research Council’s Committee on Cognition and Survey Research, Questions About Questions emphasizes the reciprocal gains to be achieved when insights and techniques from the cognitive sciences and survey research are exchanged.

"these chapters provide a good sense of the range of survey problems investigated by the cognitive movement, the methods and ideas it draws upon, and the results it has yielded." —American Journal of Sociology

JUDITH M. TANUR is professor of sociology at the State University of New York at Stony Brook. She is co-chairperson of the Social Science Research Council Committee on Cognition and Survey Research.

CONTRIBUTORS: Robert P. Abelson,  Herbert H. Clark,  Robert T. Croyle, Robyn M. Dawes,  Cathryn S. Dippo, Jack F. Dovidio,  Russell H. Fazio,  Judith Fiedler,  Ronald P. Fisher,  Nancy H. Fultz,  Anthony G. Greenwald,  Robert Groves,  Brigitte Jordan,  Mark Klinger,  Jon A. Krosnik,  Elizabeth F. Loftus,  Elizabeth Martin,  Janet L. Norwood,  Robert W. Pearson,  Kathryn L. Quigley,  Michael Ross,  Michael F. Schober,  Kyle D. Smith,  Lucy Suchman, Judith M. Tanur.  

Honorable Mention, 1989 William T. Goode Award, Family Section of the American Sociological Association

Changes in family and household composition are part of every individual's life course. Childhood families expand and contract; the individual leaves to set up an independent household; he or she may marry, raise children, lose a spouse. These transitions have a profound effect on the economic and social well-being of individuals, and the relative prevalence of different living arrangements affects the very character of society.
 

American families and Households takes advantage of the large samples provided by the decennial censuses to document recent major transformations in the individual life cycle and consequent changes in the composition of the American population. As James Sweet and Larry Bumpass demonstrate, these changes have been dramatic—rates of marriage and childbirth are down, rates of marital disruption are up, and those who can are more likely to maintain independent households despite the rapid acceleration of change during recent years, however, the authors find that contemporary trends are continuous with long-term changes in Western society.
 

This meticulous work makes a significant contribution to our understanding of the American Family and the individual life experiences that are translated into the larger population experience.
 

"Jim Sweet and Larry Bumpass provide detailed descriptions of three components of the households and families of Americans: family transitions; the prevalence of different family and household arrangements; and the economic and social circumstances of people living in different types of families and households....As a reference work, the volume is a gold mine, with many rich veins of useful information....Anyone interested in American families and how they have been changing will want to refer to this volume." —American Journal of Sociology
 
JAMES A. SWEET and LARRY L. BUMPASS are professors of sociology at the Center for Demography and Ecology at the University of Wisconsin, Madison.

A Volume in the RSF Census Series

Since the mid-1980s, as public discourse has focused increasingly on the troubled economy, many social scientists have argued the need for more analysis of the social relationships that undergird economic life. The original essays in Explorations in Economic Sociology represent the most important work in this renewed field and employ a rich variety of research methods—theoretical, ethnographic, and historical—to illustrate its key concerns.

Explorations in Economic Sociology forges innovative social theories of such economic institutions as money, markets, and industry. Although traditional economists have identified markets as driven solely by the forces of supply and demand, social factors frequently intervene. Sales at auction are determined not simply by a seller's personal knowledge of customers. Shareholder attitudes and employee organization influence everything from the way firms borrow money to the way corporate performance is measured. Firms themselves operate in social networks in which trust is a crucial factor in settling the terms for cooperation or competition.

Throughout the essays in this volume, the contributors point the way to developing a more healthy economy by fostering productive industrial networks, avoiding disintegration at management levels, and anticipating the consequences of the shift from manufacturing to service industries. Explorations in Economic Sociology is a pioneering work that bridges the gap between social theory and economic analysis and demonstrates the importance of this union in achieving an effective understanding of economic issues. The book should stimulate new interest in economic sociology by bringing together many of its most fundamental voices.

RICHARD SWEDBERG is professor of sociology at the University of Stockholm.

CONTRIBUTORS: Ronald S. Burt, Mark Granovetter, Paul M. Hirsch, Mark Lazerson, Patrick McGuire, Marshall W. Meyer, Mark S. Mizruchi, Charles Perrow, Frank Romo, Charles F. Sabel, Michael Schwartz, Charles W. Smith, Linda Brewster Stearns, Richard Swedberg, Michael Useem, Harrison C. White, and Viviana A. Zelizer

America's current system of health insurance, which relies almost exclusively on employer-sponsored coverage, is in danger of collapse, and this problem is not limited to the poor and working class. An increasing number of middle class Americans do not have employer-provided insurance and—due to skyrocketing premiums—cannot afford to purchase coverage for themselves. Reinsuring Health, by economist Katherine Swartz, examines this growing national crisis and outlines a concrete plan to make health insurance accessible and affordable for all Americans.

Reinsuring Health documents why the number of uninsured Americans—now 45.5 million people—has grown in the last twenty-five years. Swartz focuses on how labor market changes—such as the decline of domestic manufacturing, decreased unionization, and the growth of non-standard work arrangements—have led U.S. employers to retreat from providing health insurance for their workers. These trends, combined with the increasing costs of medical care, have led to an explosion in health insurance premiums and a decline in coverage, particularly among the middle-class. Since those who seek insurance as individuals are generally most likely to need health care, private insurers charge higher premiums in the individual (non-group) markets than to people who obtain group insurance. This makes individual health insurance less attractive to the young and increasingly unaffordable for middle-class Americans. Similarly, insurers charge higher per person (or per family) premiums to small firms than to large companies, so many small firms do not sponsor coverage for their employees. Reinsuring Health shows how these problems can be overcome if the federal government provides a new reinsurance program which would protect insurance companies that provide small group and individual health insurance against the possibility that their policy-holders will incur very high medical expenses. By assuming some of the risk that people will face extremely costly medical bills, the government will make insurers less hesitant to offer coverage to high-risk individuals, and will help drive down premiums for others. Reinsuring Health demonstrates that this form of government reinsurance has worked in the past, helping to establish smooth running private markets for catastrophe insurance and secondary mortgages.

Today, growing numbers of middle class Americans lack health insurance. Protection against the possibility of falling ill or getting hurt and having to pay extraordinary health care bills should not be a luxury available only to the very rich and the very poor. Reinsuring Health proposes a straightforward solution that would bring health insurance back within the reach of the increasing ranks of the uninsured, particularly those who are in the middle class.

KATHERINE SWARTZ is professor of health policy and management at the School of Public Health, Harvard University

Two sociologists and a lawyer examine here the attitudes of both survivors and attorney on various problems surrounding inheritance—from will-making through estate settlement. Within a legal frame of reference, this book is a study of what happens within a family at death—and why. The authors use the "inheritance unit" as the basis for looking at the functions of inheritance in intergenerational family continuity and the general patterns of family relationship.

MARVIN B. SUSSMAN is professor and chairman of the Department of Sociology at Case Western Reserve University.

JUDITH N. CATES is research associate of the American Psychological Association.

DAVID T. SMITH is professor of law at the University of Florida.

This work is the fifth in a series of bulletins on the applications of sociology to various fields of professional practice prepared under the joint sponsorship of the American Sociological Association and the Russell Sage Foundation. Previous bulletins have dealt with applications of sociology in the fields of corrections, mental health, education, and military organization.

Dr. Suchman has performed an important service in his clear delineation of the great potential sociology and related disciplines have for sharpening our understanding of the social factors in health and disease, for intelligent planning and mounting of appropriate action programs, and for improving the organizational structure and institutional mechanisms of the health professions themselves.

EDWARD A. SUCHMAN is professor of sociology at the University of Pittsburgh.

One of the most detailed reports ever made on an effort to establish a therapeutic community within a California prison. This work describes how the program was launched, gives a number of examples of its operation, and outlines the new problems and prospects created for inmates, staff, and the broader prison administration by this attempt to redefine the roles within the prison.

ELLIOT STUDT, a social worker, is a member of the senior research staff of the Center for the Study of Law and Society at the University of California, Berkeley.

SHELDON L. MESSINGER is Vice Chairman of the Center and is a sociologist.

THOMAS P. WILSON is assistant professor of sociology at the University of California, Santa Barbara.

Provides a directory of the rapidly expanding philanthropic foundations in Latin America, identifying over 750 foundations and presenting detailed information on 364 of them. In addition, the directory contains an introduction that analyzes historical data on Latin American foundations, a country-by-country summary of legal processes regarding foundations and pertinent tax laws, two essays by North and South American foundation presidents discussing the organization and management of private foundations, and an appendix with models of bylaws and financial statements of Latin American foundations.

ANN STROMBERG has participated in various community development projects in Latin America, taught in Latin American schools, and engaged in other sociological research projects. She is at the Pan American Development Foundation.

In recent years the decisions of the United States Supreme Court in the area of juvenile law and the growing public awareness of the delinquency problem have brought about drastic changes in American juvenile courts.

This book represents a major research effort to determine the effect of defense counsel’s performance on the conduct and outcome of delinquency cases. After a brief historical analysis of the factors leading to changes in juvenile law, the authors explore in detail the impact of the lawyer’s presence and performance on the outcomes of cases in two juvenile courts.

The analysis further explores the various factors influencing a lawyer’s defense posture and develops the thesis that the effectiveness of counsel is determined largely by the structure of the delinquency hearing and the willingness and ability of court personnel and procedures to adapt to the introduction of an adversarial role of defense counsel. What makes this study unique is the large-scale effort to combine legal analysis and sociological methodology to the study of an action-oriented program. The use of the classical experimental design, the selection of control and experimental groups by random assignment, and the extent to which the use of this methodology increases the validity of the results, will be of interest to both lawyers and social scientists. The book is a major contribution to the growing literature in the field of the sociology of law.

W. VAUGHAN STAPLETON is assistant professor of sociology at the State University College at Buffalo, New York.

LEE E. TEITELBAUM is associate professor of law at the State University of New York at Buffalo, faculty of law and jurisprudence.