Book Reviews

Caring and Coping: A Guide to Social Services. By Anthony Douglas and Terry Philpot. Routledge, 1998. Pp.259. £14.99 pb.

The Personal Social Services: Clients, Consumers or Citizens? By Robert Adams. Longman, 1996. Pp.290. £13.99 pb.

Social Services: Working Under Pressure. Edited by Susan Balloch, John McLean and Mike Fisher (eds.). The Policy Press, 1999. Pp.216. £45 hb; £16.99 pb.

Managing State Social Work: Front‐line Management and the Labour Process Perspective. By John Harris. Ashgate, 1998. Pp.152. £32.50 hb.

Health Policy in Britain. By Christopher Ham. Basingstoke: Macmillan, 4th edn 1999. Pp.237. £16.99 pb.

Community Care: Policy and Practice. By Robin Means and Randall Smith. Macmillan, 2nd edn, 1998. Pp.285. £13.99 pb.

Community Care, Ideology and Social Policy. By Harry Cowen. Prentice Hall Europe, 1999. Pp.246. £13.95 pb.

Children and Social Welfare in Europe. By Keith Pringle. Open University Press, 1998. Pp.218. £45 hb; £14.99 pb.

The Politics of Old Age in Europe. Edited by Alan Walker and Gerhard Naegele. Open University Press, 1999. Pp.230. £50 hb; £16.99 pb.

Developments in European Social Policy: Convergence and Diversity. Edited by Rob Sykes and Pete Alcock. The Policy Press, 1988. Pp.318. £18.99 pb.     

Forecasting the Political Economy of the Inner Solar System

Social structural methods are applied to forecast the political economy of the inner solar system to the 22nd century. One method considers structural indicators, specifically, population, social organization, environment, and technology. Another method examines the Tongan diaspora as an analog of human expansion into space. This future political economy could emerge as a consequence of user strain on a global electrical power grid that develops by 2050. Alternative energy needs could turn to space-based sources. If on-orbit space-based energy infrastructure provides the rationale, capability, and allure to see humans routinely living and working in space, their presence on the Moon and among the near-Earth asteroids can lead to a human diaspora to Mars and its moons. These events will build the multi-planet economy, the multi-world system of societies, and the transnational state. The development of Mars will reach a maturity of settlement from 2130 onward. As these potential events become history, capital would be transformed, and higher-order space logistics in a multi-world system of societies with its multi-planet economy would lay the foundation for a Solar System Federation. This federation constitutes transnational states among off-world human societies that could fill the vacuum of a fading Westphalian nation-state system on Earth.     

Externalities in comparative guise

For those working with social science presumptions, ethical principles can seem to come out of nowhere. This paper wonders whether they operate like the positive externalities Callon wishes to derive from economists. In exploring the question, it is forced to consider different models of internal and external positioning. It does this through taking up two manifestations of the technological economy concerned with information management, following examples drawn from Callon's own work (competitive patenting and ethical deliberations on biotechnology).     

Mothers and daughters: Linking women's life histories in Grand Bank, Newfoundland, Canada

Grand Bank is a small fishing town on the southwest coast of Newfoundland, Canada. The oral history project, on which this paper is based, focussed on the “life stories” of women in three, four and sometimes five, different generations of families. My aim was twofold. First, I wanted to build a picture of the way to the economy, and the sexual division of labour has changed in the period 1890–present. Second, I wanted to see how, by focussing several accounts of the same family experience, I could break apart the ideological construction of the past. I could also use contrasting accounts of mothers and daughters to re-examine the role of “work” in the family and the construction of a sexual division of labour.This paper explores how women situate and construct both their past and present experience, and what the different accounts given by mothers and daughters and grandaughters tell us both about female family relationships and about the interaction of gender with economic, social and technological change. The paper also suggests why this particular oral history approach, using different generations of women in the same family, is especially relevant to feminist concerns.