Book Review: International Politics and Economics, The Realities of World Communism
| Author | Robert H. McNeal |
| Published date | 01 December 1964 |
| Date | 01 December 1964 |
| DOI | 10.1177/002070206401900412 |
| Subject Matter | Book Review |
Boox
REVIEWS
561
Where
such
resources
are
lacking,
Professor
Schramm
cautiously
hints
that
old-fashioned
cultural
patterns
still persist:
It
might
be
thought
that
in
the
absence
of
adequate mass
communication,
the
more
traditional
means
of
communication
would
take
over
to bridge
the
urban-rural information gap.
And
so
far
as
possible,
this
does
happen.
Meetings
are
held
by
government
officials
and
political
spokesmen.
Folk
plays,
puppets,
singers
are
as
popular
as ever.
Bazaars
and
markets
still
provide
excuse
for
exchange
of
information along with
exchange
of
money
or
goods.
The
communication
"grapevine"
still
flourishes.
But
most
of
these
are
slow
or
limited
channels.
The
"grapevine"
is
sometimes
very
swift,
but,
as
Pye
says,
it
is
limited
in
what
it
can
carry.
He provides
a
most
useful
bibliography
of
the
existing studies
and
reports
on
media in
undeveloped
areas.
St.
Michael's
College
MARSHALL
McLUHAN
TuE
REALITIEs
OF
WORLD
COMMUNISM.
Edited
by
William
Petersen.
1963.
(Englewood
Cliffs:
Prentice-Hall,
222pp.
$4.95)
According
to
its
preface,
the
eight
essays comprising
this
volume
are
based
on
a
series
of
public
lectures
organized
by
the
Department
of
Extension
of
the
University
of
California,
Berkeley,
to
reduce
what
was
felt
to
be
a
grave
degree
of
public
ignorance
concerning
Commu-
nism.
This
apprehension
may
well
be
justified,
but it
seems
unlikely
that
any
new
academic
book
is
the answer,
and
it
seems
especially
unlikely
that
this
particular
anthology
will
have
much
influence
in
Keokuk, Iowa.
Not
only
is
the
work undistinguished
by
any
sustained
ability
to
compress
and
popularize
the
undoubted
erudition
of
the
contri-
buting
scholars,
it
is even
less
cohesive
as
a
whole
than
one
would
expect.
There
seems
to
have
been
very
little
effort
to
induce
the
contri-
butors to
adhere
to
any
pattern
based
on
chronology,
geography
or
particular
analytical
problems.
The
two
most
polished
essays-
those
by
Professors
Gregory Grossman
and
Paul
Zinner
on
post-Stalin
Soviet
economic
and
political
affairs,
respectively
-
are
somewhat
co-ordinated,
but
the
remaining
six
run
off
in too
many
directions.
Certainly
"world
Communism"
is
not
surveyed,
for
the
four
essays not
on
the
U.S.S.R.
ignore
western
European,
African
and
much
of
Asian
Communism,
while
including
quite a
specialized
review
of
the
relations
of
U.
S.
labour
unions
and
Communism.
Moreover,
Professor
Robert
Alexander's
essay
on
Latin
America
is
more
concerned
with
the
impact
of
non-Communist
revolutionary
movements
on
the
Communists
than
with the
Communists
themselves.
His
argument
is
based
on
the
thesis
that
these
non-
Communist
Latin
radicals
resemble
the
Jacobins
of
revolutionary
France,
although
it
seems
doubtful
that
this
analogy
is
any
closer
than
one
between Communists
and
French
Jacobins. Even
if
one
accepts
his
analogy,
its
significance
is
dubious;
according
to
Alexander,
the
differences
between
the
"Jacobin"
Castro and
the
Communists
of
Cuba
will
remain
"relevant",
to
what
and
in
what
way
he
does
not
say.
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