Information
| Published date | 01 June 1972 |
| Date | 01 June 1972 |
| DOI | 10.1111/j.1467-9248.1972.tb01077.x |
| Subject Matter | Information |
266
REVIEWS
the process of industrialization always moves into the centre of the
political
arena as decisions
have to be made about the allocation of the country’s increasing resources and these decisions,
in turn, raise a series of constitutional and welfare problems. Industrialization, in fact, creates
‘problems and tensions in political life as the dynamic struggle for new allocations of power and
resources proceeds’ (ibid., p. 180) and failure to cope effectively with these problems can lead to
violence.
Because
so
many countries respond in a similar way in each stage of growth, Professor Rostow
believes that newly developing nations can learn a good deal from the lessons of history and, at
the same time, it is possible, to some extent at least, to speculate about the political future of such
nations and even about the prospects of world peace.
Any attempt to summarize the contents of
Politics andthe Stages
of
Growth
in a review such as
this must necessarily fail to reflect the richness and character of
a
book that is tightly packed with
historical sequences and analytical reasoning. In order to support his contentions, Professor
Rostow ranges
so
widely over past and present theories produced by psychologists, sociologists,
anthropologists, political scientists and economists and he encompasses such wide areas of
human history that the book itself might well be regarded as a summary. In trying therefore to
indicate its scope in
a
few paragraphs one must inevitably lose both the variety and the full
flavour of the discourse.
To
venture
so
far into
so
many diverse fields of knowledge is an achieve-
ment that few authors could equal. No doubt specialists will find fault with Professor Rostow’s
particular references to their own limited areas of competence, as economists criticized particular
propositions in
The Stages
of
Economic Growth,
but these same specialists will, like economists
and economic historians before them, find their own horizons greatly extended and their view of
their own subject more brightly illuminated if they are prepared to take up Professor Rostow’s
imaginative and exhilarating challenge. If the 1970s become the Decade of Political Develop-
ment, it is not only political science that will benefit. Growth studies generally will be greatly
enriched by further empirical and theoretical investigations of the interaction between all the
economic and non-economic factors that must necessarily be involved in the growth processes.
University
of
Liverpool
SHEILA
MARRINER
INFORMATION
AFTER
the publication of six Newsletters at varying intervals, the Politics Association has now
arranged with Longmans to publish a tri-annual journal, to be called
Teaching Politics.
In
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The
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