GENERAL/THEORETICAL 1031

the chapters do not focus on common ground, and integration of this diverse array would be an impossible task.

The geographical scope of the book is nearly worldwide, with Asia prominent by its absence. Four chapters each are devoted to North Amer- ican Indian societies and to African societies, three chapters deal primarily with Europeans or persons of European descent, and two chapters each are given over to South American Indian and Oceanic cases. Despite this breadth of coverage, the actual number of pages in the book treating these different regions is very uneven. For example, of the 365 pages of ethno- graphic material, over a third focus on North American Indians (18% on the Navajo alone!), whereas the data from South America con- stitute less than 10% of the volume.

Cordell and Beckerman chose The Versatility of Kinship as the title for the book, yet one comes away from reading their “introduction” convinced that a more appropriate title might have been The Variability of Kinship. Along with “strategies, ” ”manipulation, ” and “adap- tation,” “variation” forms the basic theme of their introductory comments. Variability is the only constant that recurs in most chapters of the volume.

Edited collections typically suffer from varia- tion in the quality of contributions, and this book is no exception. Among the chapters I found more interesting were Coombs’s addition to the ongoing discussion of American kin terms: Graves and Graves’s comparative analysis of how members of three different ethnic groups in New Zealand adjust to an urban environ- ment; and Colson’s observations on the resili- ence and continuity of matrilineal kin ties in Zambia, notwithstanding the widely held view that matrilineal systems are ill-suited to survive in the face of “modernization.”

The books high price and lack of focus make it inappropriate for classroom use. Most readers will simply choose to photocopy the one or two chapters of interest to them, consigning the rest to the back shelves of the library.

Contexts of Behavior. Robert J. Maxwell. Chicago: Nelson-Hall, 1983. ix + 306 pp. n.p. (paper).

Lynn Thomas Pomona College

Robert Maxwell distinguishes natural, inter-

personal, and built environments and discusses the influences of these environments on human activity. He is willing to grant effects of other sorts, at least with respect to the interpersonal and built environments, but human effects on landscapes, water, or air are not much a part of this author’s “contexts of behavior.” The com- ment on the book’s jacket that the book forms “a comprehensive, integrated picture of human cultural ecology,” is not accurate in two respects. First, eclecticism overpowers both in- tegration and comprehensiveness. Second, too much of what is conveyed by the general label is arguably absent from the book, by way of con- ceptual clarification and by way of topical coverage.

The book begins with a brief chapter on in- troductory notions about ecosystems, including a section on Hans Selye’s general adaptation syndrome. The notion of behavioral sinks is given prominent treatment. Chapter 2 is en- titled “Traditional Theories of Environmental Influences on Perception and Behavior.” One wonders if such statements as the one about Ellsworth Huntington’s lack of “an understand- ing of some of the fundamental ideas behind the theoretical framework provided by functional- ism, or more generally, systems theory, within the last forty years” (p. 77) are reasonable even as offhand ways to refer to the theoretical prob- lems involved. Chapter 3, “The Natural Back- ground of Human Activity,” contains discus- sion (such as one finds in introductory geog- raphy texts) of weather and climate. Chapter 3 also briefly introduces the reader to shelter, clothing, subsistence patterns, cuisines, sex, and genital mutilation (including under that heading, interesting material on “the ecology of premarital coitus” [pp. 140-1461). A brief in- troduction to folk classification is given. I t is followed by interesting introductions to natural disasters such as avalanches, earthquakes, and hurricanes. The last part of the chapter con- tains material on how people cope with disasters; included here is a review (pp. 179-185) of research published in 1972 by Sims and Baumann on Alabaman versus Illinoisian reactions to tornadoes.

Chapter 4 includes under the title of “Con- structed Environments,” discussions of inter- personal space (proxemics, notions about “ter- ritoriality,” boundaries, markers) and artifacts, indoors and outdoors, mostly indoors. Attention is given to practical problems in arrangements of physical places, spaces, and the things occu- pying them. The discussion ranges from men-

1032 AMERICAN ANTHROPOLOGIST [86. 19841

tions of serious problems in slum life to prob- lems with bathroom design). A brief epilogue closes the book.

The book reads like a thoughtful person’s notes and preliminary ordering of topics in an intriguing and problematical literature. The author’s reactions to published materials make up most of the book, though anecdotes and some field observations are also included. I t is unfortunate that the most recent references in it stop disconcertingly early, at about 1976.

The book shows its author’s concerns with flexible notions of “operationalization” in research. The author seem to prefer for his frame of reference a combination of qualified functionalism (with the qualifications not quite clear), diffuse systems’ notions, and some ele- ments of culture and personality and behavior- ist orientations: a liberal dose of concepts de- rived from ethology is also present.

Given the general title of the book and claims made on its behalf, some potential readers will want to know about three lacunae. Sociobiolog- ical material is largely absent. So is treatment of recent efforts in social science to improve discus- sions of spatial, geographical, ecological, and sociological interrelations. There is, for exam-

ple, Anthony Giddens’s work, or that of, say. the annals’ historians, or many urban geograph- ers and sociologists, and feminist planners. Also missing is much systematic attention to mean- ings of environments in carefully articulated thought systems (though there are on this last matter interesting observations interspersed in the text, especially in chapter 4). The author cannot, of course, be taken to task for not discussing matters justifiably outside of his pur- view; nevertheless, attention might have been given in the book to sharper criteria of relevance and delineation of subject matter. In one case, for example. the author leaves the ambiguities in notions of territory and territoriality pretty much as is; merely pointing some of them out is useful but also weak, given that their import is not discussed. Very disparate items are included under the headings, but even so, some items one might have thought appropriate are not dis- cussed (for example, jurisdictions of states).

The book is written reasonably well, in a style much like many texts used in the instruction of American undergraduate students. I t might find a place in introductory classes on cultural ecology. Geographers might find material of in- terest in it, as might planners and perhaps some psychologists.

Physic a1

Geographic Variation in Modern Japanese Somatometric Data and Its Interpretation. The University Museum, Bulletin No. 22, 1983. Makiko Kouchi. Tokyo: University of Tokyo Press, 1983. vii + 102 pp. $22.50 (cloth).

Harry L. Shapiro American Museum of Natural History

Most, if not all, national populations are to some degree heterogeneous in origin. Migration patterns, differential survival, miscegenation, and adaptations contribute in varying degrees to this heterogeneity and their patterns of distribution. But to untangle these genetic strains and to link them with their extrater- ritorial origins as well as to trace their dynamics within a nation is a very complex affair with no easy solutions. Many efforts have already been made along these lines, some with modest but incomplete success. Some have been highly con- troversial.

Japan is a case in point. There already exists a considerable literature on the origins of the modem Japanese and their biological relation- ship to such prehistoric natives as the Jomon and the Ainu as well as with Asiatic mainland and insular groups. In this publication, Makiko Kouchi has reexamined some of the existing material on recent Japanese natives of the main islands of Kyushu, Shikoku, and Honshu, but excluding those on Hokkaido and various adja- cent small islands. One of the basic samples used in this analysis, identified as the Nishi series, was collected between 1942-45 by 27 col- laborating anatomical departments under the direction of Seiko Nishi. Although the means of various series were published, they had, accord- ing to the author, never been subjected to statis- tical analysis. Of the 27,000 subjects, only slightly less than 6,000 were selected for the present study. These were college students and were chosen on the basis that they represented a more uniform sample in terms of socioeconomic