Book Reviews : Trade, Inflation and the Dollar Thibaut de Saint Phalle. Oxford University Press £14.95
| Published date | 01 October 1982 |
| DOI | 10.1177/004711788200700415 |
| Date | 01 October 1982 |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
2247
is
seen
as
innovative
and
perceptive,
revolution
occurs
when
social
mechanisms
necessary
to
stability
break
down...&dquo;
which
might
go
far
to
explain
the
United
States
policy
towards
Latin
America.
They
emphasise
that
their
study
is
not
a
general
history
of Russia
and
China
in
the
twentieth
century
but
a
study
of
their
revolutionary
development.
To
which
might
be
added
the
corollary
that
despite
the
changes
the
structure
of
both
cultures
has
remained
largely
unaltered,
what
has
changed
is
the
origin
of
the
ruling
elites
more
stable
in
the
USSR
than
in
China.
They
point
out
that,
in
both
empires,
&dquo;egalitarian
goals
remain
an
ideal
yet
to
be
fully
realized&dquo;,
if,
in
fact,
they
are
seriously
attainable
at
all.
The
interest
of
the
work,
covering
roughly
the
years
from
1900
to
the
1970s,
spreads
far
beyond
the
interest
of
students
of
the
subject.
It
should
be
recommended
reading
as
an
introduction
to
a
most
complex
subject.
The
author
ofPolitical
Pilgrims,
Professor
Paul
Hollander,
is
Hungarian
and
has
lived
under
both
the
socialist
and
western
systems.
Educated
in
Budapest,
the
LSE
and
Princeton,
he
is
now
Professor
of
Sociology
at
the
University
of
Massachusetts
and
Fellow
at
the
Russian
Research
Center
of
Harvard.
His
aim
is
to
analyse
the
reasons
which
have
drawn
intellectuals,
from
George
Bernard
Shaw
to
Jean
Paul
Sartre,
Pablo
Neruda
and
Susan
Sontag,
to
a
favourable,
uncritical
view of
revolutionary
societies
in
spite
of theirobviousiy
repressive
features.
When
looking
at
&dquo;Marxist&dquo;
revolution
through
Western
spectacles
they
fail
to
take
into
account
the
underlying
cultural
structure
and
modes
of
thought
of
the
countries
they
are
visiting
or
considering.
The
book
contains
a
mass
of
extracts
from
the
hundreds
of travel
reports
between
1928
and
1978
which
clearly
reveal &dquo;the
political
delusions
and
daydreams
of these
intellectual&dquo;.
The
author
suggests
that
&dquo;while
the
more
apparent
motives
for
the
recent
pilgrimages
are
political,
underlying
them
is
a
quest
for
meaning,
purpose
and
sense
ofcommunity
intellectuals
feel
increasingly
deprived
of
in
the
individualistic
and
secular
societies
of
the
West&dquo;.
Taken
together
the
two
books
give
the
reader
a
much
greater
insight
into
prevailing
attitudes
in
both
East
and
West.
The
East
European
Economies
in
the
1970s
Edited
by
Alec
Nove,
Hans-Hermann
Hohmann,
Gertraud
Seidenstecher.
The
Butterworth
Group.
£19.50.
This
book
is
one
of
the
Butterworth
Studies
in
International
Political
Economy
whose
General
Editor
is
Professor
Susan
Strange.
&dquo;the
aim
of
the
present
volume
is
to
present
a
balance
sheet
of
the
development
of
economic
policy
in
Eastern
Europe
in
the
70s.
Individual
country
studies
compare
and
contrast
both
the
aims
of
economic
development
and
the
results
of
the
growth
process
and
also the
instruments
employed
in
economic
policy.&dquo;
Following
the
fundamental
changes
in
economic
policy which
occurred
in
the
1960s
the
Group
has
found
that
although
the
1970
also
brought
furtherchanges
...comprehensive
new
reform
projects
gave
way
to
a
strategy
of
gradual
further
development
of
the
respective
economic
systems
while
their
basic
character
was
preserved.&dquo;
This
&dquo;process
of
reconstruction
within
the
system&dquo;
has
also
led
to
&dquo;increasing
differentiation
of
aims,
institutions
and
instruments
of
economic
policy
between
individual
countries.&dquo;
The
contributions
to
the
study
are:
Hans
Hermann
Hohmann
on
Economic
reform
in
the
1970s;
Alec
Nove
on
USSR:
Manfred
Melzer
on
the
GDR;
Wlodzimierz
Brus
on
Poland;
Jiri
Kosta
on
Czechoslovakia;
Thomas
Vajna
on
Hungary;
George
R.
Feiwel
on
Bulgaria:
Michael
Kaser
and
Iancu
Spigler
on
Romama;
Fred
Singleton
on
Yugoslavia
and
Michael
Kaser
and
Adi Schnytzer on
Albania.
This
is
a
very
valuable
survey
not
only
for
those
specialising
in
the
area
but
also
to
all
those
studying
the
problems
of
the
modern
world
economy.
Trade,
Inflation
and
the
Dollar
Thibaut
de
Saint
Phalle.
Oxford
University
Press
£14.95.
The
author
writes
from
a
wide
national
and
international
background.
Now
Director
of
International
Business
and
Economics
at
the
Georgetown
University
Center
for
Strategic
and
International
Studies,
he
was,
from
1977-June
1981,
Director
of
the
Export-Import
Bank
of
the
United
States.
Previously
he
had
been
successively
a
financial
and
international
lawyer,
financial
vice-president
of
a
multinational
company,
responsible
for
its
foreign
operations,
an
investment
banker
and
professor
of
international
law
and
finance
at
the
Centre
d’Etudes
Industrielles
in
Geneva.
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