Ryan, Debi, and Toren Cragun's Blog

Weisberger, Lauren. 2006. The Devil Wears Prada. Anchor.

Rating:
8

Summary:
good read, and I’m not into fashion

Andrea Sachs has just graduated from college with hopes of becoming a writer for the New Yorker. Thinking she’ll have to start with a different magazine, she applies to a number of magazines before landing an interview at Runway, the world’s most famous fashion magazine. But what Andrea doesn’t realize is that the position for which she is interviewing is not as an editor, or assistant editor; actually, it doesn’t have anything to do with writing at all. She is interviewed to become the assistant for the magazine’s chief editor, Miranda Priestly. Everything then happens so fast that before she knows it, she is employed as Miranda’s second personal assistant.

And that is how the worst year of Andrea’s life begins. As it turns out, Miranda is the haughtiest woman in the world and seems to have no sense of respect for anyone she deems beneath her, which includes pretty much everyone but her husband and her children. Andrea, as her personal assistant/slave, is demeaned and ridiculed beyond human limits, but bears this burden as Miranda is so powerful that at the end of 1 year as her assistant, Miranda can get Andrea a position pretty much with anyone magazine she’d like, including The New Yorker.

But when Andrea’s neglected personal life climaxes with the near death of her best friend, Lily, with only 1 to 2 months to go in her year of torture, Andrea finally ditches the job. Her life is in shambles and she has just ruined her chance of getting whatever dream job she wanted, but she has the satisfaction of telling Miranda off.

Review:
The only reason I listened to this book is because it was a top seller among books on CD on Amazon.com. We picked it up before heading out on a road trip and, even though neither my wife nor I are at all involved with or interested in the world of fashion, we loved the book. I think we loved it primarily because just about everyone has had a boss, at one point or another, whose unruly and illogical behavior has driven us to the point that we just want to tell him/her to f*** off! Miranda Priestly is the embodiment of the worst of every one of those bosses.

But the story is not so shallow that it is limited to just Andrea’s dealing with her boss. This is another element that makes the book well worth reading. Much of the story actually involves the effect of Andrea’s job on her personal life. The result is that Andrea breaks up with her boyfriend and nearly loses her best friend whose alcoholism has gone unchecked by the one person that could have done something about it – Andrea. The multiple levels of the story make it easier to relate, adding another reason why both my wife and I enjoyed this book.

One problem I had with the book is it is actually just a shallow embodiment of the author’s life. Laura Weisberger worked as an assistant to Anna Wintour, the editor of Vogue. Wintour has been given the epithet Anna ‘Nuclear’ Wintour due to her unruly and demanding nature. Even though Weisberger refuses to admit Priestly is based on Wintour, any 9 year old can put those two together. Working as an assistant to Wintour was one of the first jobs Weisberger had out of college. As for the personal life stuff, I don’t know enough details to include those, but the book doesn’t seem a far cry from the reality of Weisberger’s life. Does this make it a bad book? Not at all. It’s still a great book, it’s just that it doesn’t require a whole lot of creativity to come up with a story about one’s life (though living a life meritorious of a book is noteworthy).

The only other problem I had with the book was I was a little thrown off by the structure of the story because it doesn’t clearly set up a conflict for the protagonist to solve. Eventually the conflict becomes more apparent as we realize Andrea just wants to make it through the year, but it took a while for me to be sure that was the conflict being addressed.

This really is a very interesting read. Frankly, it must be considering both my wife and I enjoyed it and we could care less about the ridiculous nature of the fashion industry. You don’t have to know anything about the fashion industry to enjoy this book, you just have to have had a demanding boss at some point; but experience in the fashion industry will probably make it even better.

Brown, Dan. 2006. The Da Vinci Code. 1st ed. Anchor.

Rating:
6

Summary:
An interesting read, but it should contain a postscript by the author with his goal clearly stated and references.

The book begins with Robert Langdon, a Professor of Religious Symbology at Harvard University, who has just finished a lecture on religious symbolism in France. The phone in his hotel rings in the middle of the night and his presence is requested by the head of France’s police, Captain Fache. Langdon is informed that his presence is requested due to the death of the Curator of the Louvre, Monsieur Saugniere, who is also a world reknowned art critic and expert on religious symbolism. Langdon isn’t sure why his presence is being requested, despite the fact that he was supposed to have an appointment with Saugniere just before the time he was killed. But there is an additional reason why Langdon is being requested: Saugniere, while dying from a bullet wound, used his blood and an invisible marker to draw some symbols and write a secretive note to his granddaughter. The note included the words: Find Robert Langdon.

Fache believes Langdon is the murderer and has brought him to the scene to get him to reveal what he has done. But before Fache can reel him in, Saugniere’s granddaughter, Sophie, arrives at the Louvre (the scene of the murder). She convinces Fache that she has deciphered part of the riddle left by Saugniere, but also distracts him while she informs Langdon of what Fache is doing. With Sophie’s help and encouragement, Langdon flees policy custody and begins to unravel the clues left by Saugniere to discover the mother of all discoveries: The Holy Grail.

Langdon and Sophie’s adventure takes them across France and England as they attempt to uncover the secrets of the Priory d’Sion, the secret group that supposedly founded the Knights Templar and knows the location of the Grail. Along the way, the Grail is revealed to be the corpse of Mary Magdalene, the wife of Christ and the mother of his children. The Grail also contains all of the necessary documentation required to prove that Christ was just a man and that he celebrated the divinity of the female as much as or more so than that of man.

Their adventure also brings them into contact with the real murderer of Saugneire, Silas, an albino monk and member of the secretive Catholic Group, Opus Dei. But Silas, and the person for whom he works, who is also the highest ranking bishop in Opus Dei, Father Aringarosa, are both being controlled by an unnamed individual who calls himself ‘The Teacher.’ The Teacher convinces Father Aringarosa and Silas that he can deliver to them the Holy Grail, which has long been sought by the Catholic Church because its contents would destroy the cornerstone of Catholicism – the divinity of Jesus. With the Holy Grail in their power, the Opus Dei could regain favor with the Catholic Church, which has begun to sanction them as a result of their backward, archaic practices, including self-flagellation.

The Teacher is ultimately revealed to be Leigh Teabing, a former member of the Royal British Historical Society and a member of the extended British Royal Family, who has devoted his life to the discovery of the Grail. But Saugniere, in his wisdom as the head of the Priory d’Sion, has given Sophie the necessary help and clues to defeat Teabing and eventually find the ultimate resting place of the Grail. Working together, Langdon and Sophie defeat Teabing and find what they believe to be the final resting place of the Grail, but more importantly for Sophie, they find her long-lost brother and grandmother, both of whom she thought were dead.

Review:
Admittedly, the book is a page turner, in large part because it is all one long chase scene. It begins with an intriguing murder and once Robert Langdon decides to run with Sophie, the chase is on. Fache, who is depicted as a slightly-less-than-honest, prideful Catholic, seems to have ulterior motives driving him to capture Langdon and Sophie, motives powerful enough to get him to continue the chase in England when Langdon and Sophie leave France. But even when he temporarily loses their trail in both England and France, he does not give up. With this ruthless bloodhound on their trail, Langdon and Sophie’s adventure to find the Grail is fast-paced and engaging. The pace of the text is one of the better aspects of the book.

The writing of the book is adequate, but not brilliant. There are a few witty lines, but not too many. Also, the book is story driven and not character driven. Langdon is sort of a mellow, pacifistic version of Indiana Jones. Sophie is a slightly more intelligent Marion, who occasionally reveals something to help them in their quest. Just because Silas is an albino priest who likes to hurt himself doesn’t make him any less of a lackey. Father Aringarosa’s befriending of Silas appeared to be stolen straight out of Les Miserables. And Teabing turns out to be just your standard villain. There really is very little creative about the characters in the book. For about 15 to 20 pages I thought Fache might be The Teacher, but when Teabing was introduced, I was fairly confident I knew who it was. (Hint: When the identity of the secret guy isn’t revealed within the first 1/3 of the book, it means it’s one of the characters whom you already know.)

The theme is definitely an interesting one. I haven’t read any of the recent books looking at the divinity of women (and their disenfranchisement within religion), so I can’t really comment much on how closely Brown follows this new school of thought. But as a secular individual who finds most religions are oppressively misogynistic and patriarchal, I can’t see how criticizing religions for their patriarchy is a bad thing. Additionally, Brown doesn’t overlook the social constructionist aspect of religion, claiming that the divinity of Christ is the result of a 4th century vote (which isn’t completely accurate, but does favor a secular perspective). Brown doesn’t imbue religions with any sort of divinity. This doesn’t mean he isn’t advocating a sort of spirituality and, in fact, he even seems to encourage religious belief in a few places, but I felt his exploration of the idea of the divinity of the feminine is one of the main reasons this book has done so well. I think women are making headway, even into religion, which remains a final bastion of male dominance. Even though I, personally, would just like to see religion disappear, I would probably be less critical of religion if it wasn’t so rooted in hierarchies that rank one group of people over another (e.g., men over women, members over non-members, etc.). Thus, what Dan Brown has done for the inclusion of women in religion and their empowerment is to be commended.

Finally, what was perhaps the most interesting part of the novel for me was the inclusion of elements of history and society. Thankfully, I was somewhat skeptical of some of Brown’s claims. There are a lot of errors in the history incorporated into the text. For instance, there is no evidence pre-Christian Jews had sex in Solomon’s Temple as a way to commune with God. Also, Brown depicts Constantine as a pagan who used and manipulated Christianity strictly for political ends (some of which is true), but he also attributes the divinity of Jesus and the structure of the modern Bible to Constantine. The first is partially accurate (Constantine called and sponsored the Council of Nicaea where much of this was decided), the second is wholly inaccurate (see references below). Thus, while I can’t say I disagree with some of Brown’s views on religion, his scholarship leaves much wanting. He seems to take as authoritative fallacious sources because they are the most outlandish. Many of his sources are modern mysticism texts with no authoritative or historical basis (tarot for instance). If you haven’t read the book yet, I would highly encourage you to think of it almost entirely as fiction. Just because there is reference to historical events doesn’t mean Brown has accurately depicted them.

Overall, while I found the book engaging, I don’t think it warrants the hype it has received. It isn’t superbly written but instead employs a simple literary device to push the story – a chase. Also, even though the predominant theme seems anti-religious (at least, anti-traditional, patriarchal religion) and presents an interesting pro-feminism agenda, the remarkable lack of accuracy in the facts and details is disturbing. Sure, a fiction novel should be about a good story, but when it is based on history, the history should be at least minimally accurate. With the millions of dollars Brown has made on this book, I certainly hope he spends a few dollars on hiring someone to check facts for his next novel. If I ever get around to reading another Dan Brown novel and it is also filled with this many conspiracy theories and this much mystical mumbo jumbo, I don’t think I’ll ever read another of his books. I’d much rather read accurate, dry history than misleading, inaccurate, engaging fiction; life is too short to be spend all of your time reading lies.

Kurtz, Lester R. 2006. Gods in the Global Village: The World’s Religions in Sociological Perspective (Sociology for a New Century Series). 2nd ed. Pine Forge Press.

Rating:
8

Summary:
excellent text on the sociology of religion

This is really more of a textbook on the sociology of religion than anything else. As such, it is not particularly conducive to summation (too many topics; too much information).

However, there are two things worth noting about the contents. First, the book goes to great lengths to look at religion from a global perspective, which I found to be invaluable and informative, especially considering how uncommon it is to do so. The second point is similar – the book doesn’t focus on just Christianity or U.S. religion. The book compares, contrasts, and examines all of the major world religions– Christianity, Judaism, Islam, Buddhism, and Hinduism. There isn’t really more emphasis on one than another; they pretty much receive equal treatment, which is also unusual.

Review:
The fact that the book looks at all of the major world religions rather than focusing on just Christianity, which is early on outlined as the book’s objective (a global perspective), is refreshing and likely very informative for students in the U.S. who typically are somewhat ignorant of life outside of their country.

It is also nice that the author, Lester Kurtz, reveals his personal religious biases to begin with. His wife and kids are Jewish, but as a family they predominantly worship at Quaker worship services. His interest in the Quaker religion is revealed, to a degree, by his treatment of Ghandi. Not only is the treatment quite extensive, but Ghandi is idolized for his peaceful tactics (not that I disagree with this approach, I just found it revealing of the author’s biases). Also, the final chapter, though well-written and not particularly overt, is definitely Kurtz’s attempt to spread a message of peace. He doesn’t necessarily attack religions for their history of justifying violence, but he definitely hopes this history is nearing its end.

Despite being well-written and offering an informative global perspective, there are a couple of problems with the book. First, there is only minimal treatment of secularization. Lacking is a discussion of neo-secularization (Chaves 1994), though admittedly much of this was happening while Kurtz was writing the book. Also, though the debate continues, there is definitely much more evidence for the existence of secularization in the U.S. than is presented in the text.

The book also gives the impression that it isn’t possible to have values/morals without religion. I’m guessing this isn’t the intention of the author as he tends to be fairly objective, but it is implied in several locations. I also found the author’s usage of scripture, the Bible in particular, disturbing. He goes in and out of using the Bible as historical and metaphorical and never specifically states which perspective he is employing at any given point. For instance, Kurtz uses the story of Moses coming to power as the leader of the Children of Israel to make a point about religions generally, but also seems to conclude that the story is historically accurate. Whether he really believes it is or not isn’t clear.

Finally, the author has a tendency to drift off onto theoretical tangents that at times are more rambling than coherent. These occurrences are few and far between, but when they do happen you find yourself wondering how you arrived where you are.

Overall, I highly recommend this book as a text for a course on the sociology of religion. The book is for the most part accurate, well-written, and clear (I know he missed one point with Mormons, but I didn’t find many other flaws). The book isn’t without its problems, but they are truly minimal compared to the synthesis of a global perspective on religions he has produced in writing this book.

Pullman, Philip. 2006. The Golden Compass, Deluxe 10th Anniversary Edition. 10th ed. Knopf Books for Young Readers.

Rating:
10

Summary:
Can’t wait to see how it ends

Lyra Belacqua (Silvertongue) believes she is an orphan, left to the care of the scholars in Oxford’s Jordan College. Her only known family is her uncle, the powerful Lord Asriel, a scientist, statesman and revolutionary. With her daemon, Pantalaimon, and best friend Roger, Lyra is constantly exploring the environs of Oxford and engaging the nearby children in warfare.

Her carefree life begins to change when her uncle shows up at the college to make a presentation and is nearly poisoned by the headmaster, only to be saved by Lyra. Lyra also overhears Asriel’s presentation on ‘Dust’, a mysterious substance later revealed to be dark matter, Original Sin, and consciousness, depending on the world in which you live (more on this below).

After Lyra’s encounter with her uncle, Lyra’s best friend, Roger, disappears. He is believed to have been kidnapped by Gobblers – a group of people that have been stealing kids and taking them to the arctic to perform experiments on them.

Despite this new information, Lyra’s life remains unchanged until she makes the acquaintance of Mrs. Coulter, a refined, powerful and beautiful woman. Lyra leaves Oxford to be instructed by Mrs. Coulter only to find out she isn’t quite as nice as originally thought. But before leaving with Mrs. Coulter, Lyra is giving an alethiometer by the head master (a.k.a. the Golden Compass), an instrument that can answer any question as long as you know how to read it; something Lyra quickly learns to do.

Lyra’s awe of Mrs. Coulter turns to fear when she realizes Mrs. Coulter is a Gobbler (actually the lead Gobbler). This encounter sets off a chain of events, eventually leading Lyra to the arctic where she makes the acquaintance of witches and armored bears, all the while searching for her friend, Roger. But once she finds him, her mission changes. Her famous uncle, whom she has learned is really her father, has been imprisoned by her mother, Mrs. Coulter.

What Lyra doesn’t realize is that her father needs Roger to accomplish his goal, which is also the very thing for which he was imprisoned – he wants to create a bridge to another world, one of numerous multi-verses. When Lyra finally finds him, with Roger at her side, Roger is kidnapped to become the requisite sacrifice; separating him from his daemon will generate the energy necessary to create the portal. Despite her efforts, Lyra is unable to stop her father and Roger is sacrificed.

The book ends with the opening of the window and Lyra following her father through, hoping now to avenge the death of Roger.

Review:
The book isn’t easily summarized as it is the beginning of a three book series that grows even more complicated. The greatest strength of this book is in its development of convincing characters, all the while laying the ground work for a very powerful plot idea (revealed in the second book).

But that same strength transforms into a weakness as the well-developed characters are quickly forgotten. For instance, The gyptians that accompany Lyra for nearly half the book are dropped from the story as soon as she finds Roger and no longer needs them, even though it is the gyptians who explain how to use the alethiometer and tell her who her parents are.

Also a problem with the book is the brief treatment of some of the main characters. Even by the time he dies, Roger is still a stranger even though he is pivotal to the story. This is compared with Lord Faa, who, though important, isn’t nearly as pivotal but is much better developed.

Another potential problem with the book is that it is somewhat misleading concerning its subject matter and the level of writing. Ultimately, Lord Asriel aims to kill God (revealed in the subsequent novels). Given this aim, it is arguable whether or not this is a kids’ book. Personally, I applaud Pullman for his position and his approach, but some readers will probably not appreciate the subject matter.

Overall, my complaints are truly minor. This is an excellent beginning to what portends to be an excellent series.

Fox, Jeffrey C. 2006. Latter-Day Political Views. Lexington Books.

Rating:
6

Summary:
Jeffrey C. Fox’s book, Latter-Day Political Views, raises an intriguing question: Are Mormons politically homogeneous? This book brings some intriguing data to the discussion of this issue, though it has some limitations.

The book sets up the question of the homogeneity of Mormons by referencing a number of prior studies that focus almost exclusively on the political views of Utah Mormons. Fox’s argument is that Mormons from Utah may very well be politically homogeneous given all of the things they have in common (e.g., religion, race/ethnicity, culture region, proximity to LDS headquarters, etc.), but as soon as you leave Utah, Mormons become substantially more heterogeneous and other factors begin to influence their political views. As Fox puts it, “German Latter-Day Saints, for example, would resemble other Germans more than they would Mexican, French, or Somoan Latter-Day Saints” (p. 10). At the global level, this argument is compelling and makes sense; with Mormonism or any multi-national religion, you are likely to find inter-national diversity and intra-national homogeneity (though I can think of a few exceptions – e.g., Jehovah’s Witnesses). But this argument also states that Mormons outside Utah are politically different from Mormons inside Utah, which isn’t as compelling. Unfortunately, there is very little recent data to test this latter issue (Mauss’s survey of Mormons in Utah and the Bay area, which is re-analyzed in this book, addresses this, but is dated), and this book doesn’t address the inside/outside Utah question either. Instead, this book focuses on two questions: (1) Are Mormons outside the U.S. different from Mormons inside the U.S.? And, (2) is there variation in political views among Mormons in the U.S.?

Another important element of this book is the discussion of the basic assumption of the book: that religion influences political views. Given the focus of the book – Mormon political views – it makes sense that the underlying argument is that being Mormon influences one’s political views. But the author doesn’t just assume this to be the case. Instead, he talks about some of the major criticisms of this assumption: (1) there aren’t always clear positions on political issues within religions, (2) you have to control for other political and regional cultural influences, and (3) measuring this directly is basically impossible (p. 13). Having faced a similar issue with some of my research, I think the first two criticisms are addressable, and Fox does an okay job addressing them. But the third issue is not as readily addressed; in order to accurately capture the influence of religion on political views a level of measurement is required that is basically impossible to attain. You’d have to track individuals over time and be able to peer inside their heads to observe how religion influences their personal views. That, of course, isn’t going to happen. Thus, we are left assuming that, if you control for criticisms 1 and 2 above, you can infer that it is religion that is influencing attitudes and not something else. This isn’t always a compelling argument, but I guess that’s as good as we can do in the social sciences.

This leads me to the methodological approach in this book. In order to address the questions that interest him, Fox uses a purposive sample of active, long-time Mormons from the U.S. (26), Canada (11), and Mexico (14). The total sample is 51 active Mormons. While the obvious criticism of non-random sampling is applicable, I can understand Fox’s approach as well: he forewent representativeness for depth of analysis. Even so, the sample is one of the major limitations of this book. In order to control for other political and regional influences (criticism #2 above), you really need a comparison group. Fox skirts this requirement by arguing, perhaps inaccurately, that respondents from different countries are “necessarily” different as a result of the cultural influence of their respective countries, alleviating the necessity of comparison groups. For example, Fox asserts that Canadian Mormons support universal health care because it is the norm in Canada. That’s probably true, but, in a sense, he is now layering an assumption on an assumption: Canadian Mormons differ from: (1) U.S. Mormons because of their Canadian culture, and (2) from non-Mormon Canadians because of their Mormon culture. Again, that is probably true, but this is a good illustration of how making arguments concerning the influence of culture on individuals is limited. How many cultures can influence an individual? If it is more than one, can you ever really separate out the influences?

In addition to the limitation of the sample size, the sampling methodology is unclear and potentially problematic. Fox describes his sample as, “ balanced in terms of gender, income, and political party identification” (p. 57) but it is unclear clear what he means by “balanced.” Fox does report in Table 4.1 the genders, ages, and political party identifications of the respondents, but this isn’t summarized in a table or in the text. Here’s what I calculated: 19 women, 32 men; average age is 43.31; 11 Democrats (US), 15 Republicans (US); 10 participants with only a high school education, 41 with some college (how much isn’t clear); 2 Africans, 1 Hawaiian, 6 Latinos, 1 Maori, 5 Native Americans, 1 Puerto Rican, 2 Samoans, 33 Caucasians. According to Heaton, Bahr, and Jacobson (2005), 23% of Mormons are Democrats while 50% are Republicans (leaving another 27% as independents). Fox isn’t too far off, but I wouldn’t necessarily consider his sample balanced on this factor.

Additionally, how these individuals were recruited is not clear. In the acknowledgments, Fox mentions he did some interviewing on vacations with his family, but I’m not sure what that means in terms of recruitment. In Chapter 5 Fox reveals some of the occupations among his respondents; they include: a Mayor, a Congressman, and other political activists. That doesn’t seem particularly representative of Mormons. If the goal of a research project is to illustrate that there is variation in Mormon political views, you can illustrate that to be true by either surveying lots of people to show there is variation (Heaton et al.’s approach), or you can find a bunch of people who differ from the stereotype and interview them. That appears to be what Fox has done. Unfortunately, the second approach isn’t really going to answer definitively whether and/or how much variation in political views there is among Mormons as it is, in essence, sampling on the dependent variable: Fox found people (how, we don’t know) who fit his criteria for non-stereotypical Mormons and then used them to say Mormons are not stereotypical. That’s a circular argument. I do think Fox is right that there is variation, but this is a serious limitation of the study.

Fox uses three different data collection techniques to triangulate political attitudes. He did some initial interviewing to generate his measurement instruments, used Q sorting and a survey to gather the bulk of his data, then interviewed a few more people. Q methodology is a forced choice ranking technique in which participants evaluate a series of statements based on their level of agreement with them. The rankings are then factor analyzed to generate groups, which appears to be a type of cluster analysis (though with Q sorting you can belong to multiple groups, which seems odd to me). Based on his study of Mormonism and the official and unofficial positions of the LDS religion on a number of political issues, Fox geared the questions in the Q sort and the survey instrument to test agreement with the following positions of the LDS religion:

• Social and Moral Issues
  • Endorse traditional “family values”
  • Concern with moral decline and attribution of moral decline to the media
  • Oppose abortion and gambling
• Capitalism and Economic Issues
  • Place high value on private property and economic self-determination
  • Low support for redistribution of power and wealth
  • Low support for environmental regulation
  • Emphasize self-reliance versus government provision of basic needs
  • Are trusting of government and deferential to authority
  • Oppose socialized health care
• Military Spending and Foreign Affairs
  • Support military spending and interventionism
  • Support free trade
• LDS Issues
  • Have a high view of the inspired Constitution, and of the U.S. as a “light unto the world.”
  • Vote and pay attention to politics
  • High hope in the future and high political efficacy
  • Strong focus on “law and order”
  • Highly individualistic outlook
• Miscellaneous Issues
  • Oppose gun control
  • Oppose affirmative action

The Q sort indicates there is some variation among Mormons on political attitudes (though Fox admits these findings are not generalizable beyond his sample). Fox derives six distinct groups (the number in each group is in parentheses), which he labels:

• A: Pro-US Social Conservatives (21)
• B: Pro-US Libertarians (14)
• C: Pro-US Optimistic Liberals (9)
• D: Pro-US Alienated Liberals (8)
• E: Ambivalent-US Communitarians (17)
• F: Ambivalent-US Moderate Libertarians (5)

While six groups are initially derived from the Q sort, when plotted in two-dimensional space, it becomes apparent that there really are, at most, 3 or 4 groups (C and D group together, as do E and B). Additionally, a correlation of the Q factors (p. 58) illustrates that they are all highly correlated, which means every one of these groups has a lot in common. Fox attributes this to a shared superfactor: “a high level of optimistic US-centric moralism” (p. 86). This finding left me wondering if the differences are, in fact, an artifact of the methodology. If participants did not have to rank the statements but could, instead, rate them independently, would minor differences still result? The findings from the survey seem to indicate there would be some differences, but I don’t believe they are different enough to allow groupings.

Additionally, without non-Mormons in the sample, I have to wonder if this analysis is finding lots of mini-clusters within a large cluster. If, for example, we pretend we can measure political views on a single continuum (we can’t, it’s multi-dimensional) and that continuum ranges from 0 to 100, it may be the case that Mormons generally fall in the 80 to 90 point range on that continuum. Rather than recognize that they all fall in a 10 point range, Fox is asserting that there is a substantive and important difference between 80 and 90 (and between 83 and 85). He is basically zooming into a single cluster and finding clusters within the cluster. Without comparison groups, I’m left wondering if what Fox is doing is detecting mini-clusters (A, B, C, D, etc.) within a larger cluster (Mormons) that is quite removed from other clusters (e.g., ultra-liberal feminists, socialists, or gay rights activists). What is this really telling us?

Following the Q sort, Fox looks at variations in attitudes by nationality. While the sample size really is too small to do the statistical analysis that Fox does, this part of the book was, to me at least, the most compelling argument that cultures other than religion influence attitudes. As noted earlier, almost to a person the Canadian participants supported universal health care while few Americans did and no Mexicans did. Given the limitations with the sample, this certainly isn’t generalizable, but it does fit with general perceptions of what Mormons in these respective countries might believe. Unfortunately, the analysis by race is even more limited by the sample size, but it, too offers some intriguing insights: racial/ethnic minorities have more socially progressive views across the board than do the racial/ethnic majority groups. Again, this is not surprising, but it adds credibility to Fox’s arguments.

To bolster the reader’s confidence in his findings, Fox turns to additional data sets. He uses the National Election Studies (NELS), Armand Mauss’s 1960s survey of Mormons in Utah and the Bay Area, as well as a KBYU exit poll data set. For the most part, these data sets support the arguments developed by Fox. The NELS data set is generally considered an excellent dataset, but Mauss’s data is now over 40 years old, predates the change in race policy and even the push toward correlation. Generalizing from 40+ year old data to Mormons in the U.S. today is not very compelling. The KBYU data set, of course, is only from Utah, but Fox uses it to illustrate his point that Utah Mormons may be different from non-Utah Mormons; given its application, I don’t think there is a problem with the KBYU data set. Combined, the additional data sets are a good addition, but better data sets are now available (see Heaton et. al. 2005).

There are some other very minor issues that warrant mention in passing. There is a lengthy yet unnecessary discussion of the early prosecution of Mormons. I think this was supposed to tie into the political views of Mormons, but how it was supposed to tie in isn’t clear to me. In presenting the results for the Q sorts, only the significant statements for each group are presented, which makes it impossible to compare the groups. Readers are left taking the author’s word that they are really different. There are a few places where the author makes blanket statements that are unfounded, (e.g., “Church members always look to their leaders for guidance…” p. 29). These are unfortunate distractions in an otherwise well-written and carefully worded book (though there are quite a few typos and some table formatting issues that make them hard to read).

Ultimately, Fox concludes that, “… white Western Saints are a fairly homogeneous minority within the worldwide membership of the church.” That is probably overstating the case; but I’m not alone in that assessment. Fox also admits that, “the LDS conservative stereotype is correct in one sense. It is very unlikely that one will find significant numbers of textbook liberals among church members, particularly those who favor social libertarianism” (p. 161). I think this last statement from Fox is accurate. But I also think the broader issue, that Mormons are not homogeneous, is a bit of a strawman: most people already believe there is diversity among Mormons, but that diversity is within a cluster, not between clusters. Latter-Day Political Views does provide some useful data illustrating inter-national diversity within that cluster, but this really is just a first step and not the definitive work.