Dartmouth Authors
Joseph A. Massey, assistant professor of government. Youth and Politics in Japan. Lexington (Mass.) Books, 1976. 233 pp. $18.50. A study of "the political learning process among Japanese teenagers," Professor Massey's book results from his research at the University of Tokyo in 1968-69. Its scholarship is massive, thorough, and quantitatively based on the data obtained from computerized analysis of thousands of questionnaires completed at the height of the political alienation of the late 1960s. Massey concludes, among many other things, that although democracy has taken firm root among Japanese youth, nevertheless "a profound shift in Japanese attitudes toward authority" has occurred. Japanese youth, he finds, are anti-authoritarian; among other aspirations, they "desire more human and approachable leaders." As our own presidential campaign begins to demonstrate, such aspirations seem neither of East nor West, youth nor age, but pandemic.
Norman F. Maclean '24. A River RunsThrough It and Other Stories. University of Chicago, 1976. 217 pp. $7.95. Excerpts appear in this issue.
Ralph Nading Hill '39, editor. Aiken: SenateDiary, January 1972-January 1975. Stephen Greene, 1976. 370 pp. $12.50. The political memoir of George Aiken's last three years in the senate includes a foreword by Hill, his editor and fellow Vermonter. Best known perhaps as "the conscience of the senate," George D. Aiken (R.Vt.) retired to his home in Putney in 1975 after 45 years of public service, 35 of them as U.S. Senator. "The book is pure Aiken," writes his friend Senator Mike Mansfield. "It is succinct, to the point, and an honest appraisal. Like the man himself, there no dodges, no procrastinations, and what comes through is the real 'Aiken of Vermont'...." And being "pure Aiken," the book will most certainly have an appeal far beyond the borders of Vermont. Deservedly, Senator Aiken is the stuff of legends.
Page Smith '40. A New Age Now Begins. McGraw-Hill, 1976. 2 vols., 1899 pp. Excerpts appeared in the May issue.
