The Social Organization of Strikes.

Abstract

area guaranteed to fascinate and challenge any sociologist. Mining and Social Change is part of the outcome of that irresistible fascination and it is a go<)d book. Nonetheless for someone who knows County Durham it is bound to be a slightly disappointing book because there is so much else to be said. But, of course, one cannot report research that has not been done. Research on family and kinship is missing, and one can hardly make sense of the history of the region without understanding the traditional relations between men, women and children in such a 'masculine' society and the current impact of economic change upon this. Ken Patton contributes a largely historical account of the foundation of Peterlee new town, but he and others now know much of the outcome of the new town's p<)lieies. There is also no discussion of the liveliest political issue of the late I960S the Category D village policy of forced population movement. Nonetheless the editor who is also the major contributor of the volume-has brought together a stimulating set of essays. They raise interesting questions about whether one can 'do the sociology' of a particular location and whether by so doing one can develop a rounded intexpretation of politics and society which links together the many institutional factors which are only seerl separately by the actors-and often intexpreted separately by the soeiologists. There is nothing intellectually parochial irl coming to grips with the society around a department of sociology and this need by no means be the exclusive activity of a department. But in doing good sociology the sociologists in Durham may have done some good for the local population. This is no mean achievement and one that should be emulated.