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account for trust we first need an account of trustworthiness (p. 83). In order to account for trustworthiness, we need to understand more about the social context, the relationships among actors and actors expectations about others. Fortunately, some of the experimental work described here is beginning to pursue these issues, for example, in the chapters by Cook and Cooper, Eckel and Wilson, and Yamagishi. Sociologists skeptical of experimental research in general, and of game theory or evolutionary psychology in particular, may want to start with Margaret Levis chapter, appropriately titled The Transformation of a Skeptic: What Nonexperimentalists Can Learn from Experimentalists. Levi raises many of the concerns that nonexperimental sociologists are likely to have regarding what we can learn from the very carefully circumscribed conditions created, indeed required, in experimental research. As she points out, and as the several chapters that review experimental research programs demonstrate, it is precisely the control over conditions available in experiments that make them a powerful tool for advancing our understanding of concepts such as trust. Ostrom and Walker are optimistic about the prospects of experimental research:
By adding experimental methods to the battery of field methods already used extensively, the social sciences of the twenty-first century will move more rapidly in acquiring well-grounded theories of human behavior and of the effect of diverse institutional arrangements on behavior. (p. 386)
volume succeeds and will be of interest to scholars across the social sciences. Reference
Hardin, Russell. 2002. Trust and Trustworthiness. New York: Russell Sage Foundation.
Liquid Love: On the Frailty of Human Bonds, by Zygmunt Bauman. Cambridge, UK: Polity; Malden, MA: Distributed in the USA by Blackwell Publishing, 2003. 162 pp. $52.95 cloth. ISBN: 0-7456-2488-X. $19.95 paper. ISBN: 0-7456-2489-8.
BURAK KESKIN-KOZAT
University of Michigan bkeskin@umich.edu This book is another compelling sequel to Baumans Liquid Modernity, published in 2000, in which he discusses the radical transDelivered bymodernity Ingenta to formation of into a fluid process. User Unknown In contrast to early modernity, which IP: 212.159.124.238 imposed strict controls on individual free2004..12..29..15..22.. doms for attaining and perpetuating social order, liquid modernity offers its denizens (p. vii) unlimited opportunities of action by putting themthanks to the escalating consumerism and globalizationin direct control of managing their relationships with others. Such individualized supervision of ones engagements promises and yet falls short of providing full satisfaction of ones desires, because, in the absence of universal guarantees for the prospects of interpersonal communication, individuals readily break up their commitments at the slightest perception of a probable loss. The highly unpredictable nature of liquid modernity breeds constant feelings of insecurity, vulnerability, and anxiety, which in turn further intensify brittleness, breakability, and ad hoc modality of social bonds. Bauman elaborates these arguments on the basis of three types of relationships: namely, ones relationship with the beloved, with his/her social being (through sexual activity and in interaction with the members of his/her community), and with the humanity at large. Through a meticulous analysis of contemporary publications on counseling (about love and intimacy), mobile phone usage, text messaging, soap operas, reality television shows, urban architectural designs,
Overall, Trust and Reciprocity provides an extensive review of the findings from experimental research across social, psychological, and even biological sciences to examine what Ostrom and Walker call the foundations for trust and trustworthy behavior (p. 7). The breadth of work covered in this book is both a strength and a weakness. Despite the commonality of experimental methods, the diversity of fields, frameworks, and terminology covered throughout means the volume does not really hang together as a coherent view on trust or reciprocity. As an overview of experimental research on trust from diverse fields of study, however, the
Contemporary Sociology 33, 4
FINAL PROOF
Society and Its Metaphors: Language, Social Theory, and Social Structure, by Jos Lpez. New York; London, UK: Continuum, 2003. 186 pp. $115.00 cloth. ISBN: 0-8264-6384-3. $29.95 paper. ISBN: 0-8264-6385-1.
RUSSELL K. SCHUTT
University of Massachusetts Boston russell.schutt@umb.edu Alan Sokols Social Text hoax is probably responsible for more sociologists awareness of modern literary criticism than is any legitContemporary Sociology 33, 4
FINAL PROOF