Edited a.t the Department of Sociologyf Universityof Kansas

Supervising EditorsSCOTT MCNALL ROBERTANTONIO

Editor-in-CbiefRENEE M. ZIMMERMAN

Consulting EditorMIKBLACY

LAURAGRAFDAVID]. PITTMAN

Washington University

.Book'Re~iew Manage,NANCY J. WERT

MARY MORSEJEFFREY W.' RIEMERWichita State University

JAMES C. CREECHNICHOLAS BABCHUK

University of Nebraska-Lincoln

Business ManagerDANA APPLE

Associate Editorsand

Supervising Associate Editors

-Managing EditorROBERT J. WAZIENSKI

JAMES MARQUARTALEX MCINTOSH

Texas A&MUniversity

GARY FOSTEREUGENE FREIDMANKansas State University

JAMES JANZENRICHARD A. WRIGHT

McPherson College

~ride Review ManagerW. RICHARD STE.P'HENS

Mid-American Review of Sociology

In Praise of Mosca and Michels Gerhard Lenski 1

Sociology and Literature: The Dramatizationof An Education Experience Nicholas Ch. Tatsis 101

61

117

121

Vol. V, No.2

Deborah A ~ Willsieand jeffrey w~ Riemer

CONTENTS

ARTICLES

WINTER 1980

Book Reviews

Socio-Structural Analysis of ImmigrantWorker Minorities: The Case ofWest Germany Friedrich Heckmann 13

The American Agriculture Movement: Manifestand Latent Participant Attractions in aSocial Movement Gary Foster 31

Notes and Comments

Health Self-Report Correlates Among OlderPeople in National RandomSample Data MarshaUJ. Graney and

..Renee M. Zimmerman 47

Make Today Count: A Mutual SupportGroup for the Dying ceato. Bradford and

R.Ann Myers 91

The Campus Bar as a 'BastardInstitution'

Women ofa Certain Age: The .Midlife Searchfor SelfLillian B. RubinReviewed by Joann E. Hamick

The Madam as Entrepreneur: Career Managementin House ProstitutionBarbara Sherman Hey!Reviewed by Beth Hartung Weinman

Mid~American Review of Sociology Sponsors

KANSAS STATE 'UNIVERSITYDepartment of Sociology ~

Anthropology and Social Work*

MCPHERSON COLLEGEBehavioral Science Department

TEXASA&.M UNIVERSITYDepartment of Sociology and Anthropology*Department of Rural Sociology"

W.ASHINGTON UNIVERSITYDepartment of Sociology*

WICHITA STATE UNIVERSITYDepartment of Sociology'

UNIVERS1TY OF KANSASDepartment of Sociology*

UNIVERSITY OF NEBRASKA at LINCOLNDeputmentofSocmlogy*

UNIVERSITY OF WISCONSIN at LA CROSSEDepartment of Sociology and Anthropology

*Department offering PhD. programs

Contributors .

GARYFOSTE~ is working on a PhD. in sociology atKansas"State University. He received his B.A. and M.A. degrees £ro1;11Western Kentucky University .. Gary also holds a M..A.degree in:folklore. His areas of interest includessocialpsychology, changeand development, and community.

MAR.SHALL J. G·RANE·y is Associate Professor and Acting Chair­man, Department of Sociology, and FacultY"Affiliate ot. theInstitute of Gerontology at Wayne State University. A Universityof Minnesota Ph.D. and a Fellow ofthe Gerontological Society,hehas taught sociological research methods' and sociology ofagittgcourses at Tulane' University, the UniversitY of Minnesota, Uni­versity of Southern California, Wic.hita State University, andWayne State University. Author of chapters in Late Life andResearch Instruments in Social Gerontology and many articlespublished in the periodical literature, his current work. emphasizesthe roles of communication in the lives of older people.

FRIEDRICH HECKMANN teaches Sociology in the Institute ofSocial Science at the Friedrich-Alexander-University Erlangen­Nurnberg in. the Federal Republic of Germany. Professor Heck­mann works in the area of minority relations and migration .. Hehas been doing extensive research and writing about SouthernEuropean "guestworkers' living in Northern Europe. This paperwas originally delivered to the joint session of the ISA' 'ResearchCommittee on Migration and the Research Committee on EtJw.ic,Race, and Minority Relations at the 9th World Congress of Socio...logy in Uppsala, Sweden. .

GERHARD LENSKI is Alumni Distinguished Professor of¥~i.logy at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. WitH:n~

wife, Jean Lenski, he has recently completed the fourthed];tionof Human Societies, which is scheduled for publication n7X.t.y~ar.,

With John Kasarda and Amos Hawley, he is a recent recipientof an NSF grant for the study of technology and social change.

JEFFREY W.RIEMER is Associate Professor of Sociology atWichit.aState University. His current research interest is work inthe moral order.

DEBORAH A. WILLSIEgraduated,with a B.A,. degree in Socio­lqgy and Social Wor~ from Wi~hita State University) Jun·e 1980.She is currently doing graduate work at Syracuse University inNewYork.

RENEE M. ZIMMERMAN is currendy a graduate student atKansas University. She received a B.A,. in both Psychology andSociology in 1977cmd cempletediher work at Wichita StateUniversity witha M.A..degree in Sociology. Renee is concentratingher research efforts in medical sociology,gerontology, and issuesof death and dying.

IN PRAISE OF MOSCA AND MICHELS

Gerhard LenskiUniversity ofNorth Carolina-Chapel Hill

~American .Review of SOGiology~ 1980, Vol. Vt No.2: 1-12

Genealogy is a selective an. When tracing ancestry, genealo­gists usually focus attention on their more illustrious forebears,while ignoring others whose careers seem less admirable,

Sociological genealogists are .also highly selective. Whenteaching or wrieingaboutthehistory of our discipline, the treat­mentof our many· intellectual £orebeus·is·usually quite uneven.Some are singledout forhigh.praisetand become almost god­likefigures, while others receive much. more modest treatment orare ignored altogether. In recent years; it has been .fashionable tolaud especially the contributions of Weber) Marx, and Durkheim,In contrast, many others, such as Malthus, Comte, Spencer,andSumnert who were influential and important ftgnres in their ownday and who offer alterative models forme discipline,receivemuch less .attention, and ·still others.isuch as Mosca and Michels,arevirtually ignored.

Ther.easonsfor such varied treatmentare certainly under­standable. Academic genealogy is. an. important part of.rheinrel­lectualsocialization process, and it is important to inculcate ineach new generation cfseudentathe virtues we perceive in in­fluential members of generations. past.· 'Converselytweneed' tobeware of giving undueattention.·toscholars·of the past.whoma.y J by word or deed,.lead younger scholars from·' th:e path ofvirtue. Elitist theorists, Mosca and Mic·hels, seem roberegardedin this latter category. Their: theories are reputed to have aeon...servarive bias and th.e .lives. of both men were tainted byassocia­tionwith Italian fascism. Given the political preferences' of thegreat majority of contemporary sociologists, this has been thekiss of death•.1 believe, however, that Mosca and Michels deservebetter at our hands and that the widespread neglect of their workhas handicapped the development of current theory in ways· thathave proven unfortunate.