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An outline of K. Kosik's political theory (Dialectics of the Concrete: A Study on the Problem of Man and World, Kovanda, K., Schmidt, J. [Translated], Dordrecht, 1976). Habermas's & Kosik's approaches to praxis are reviewed. How the reduction of praxis to production in Eastern Europe has suffocated the element of 'fabrication' or conscious creative choice in the emancipatory alternatives of socialism is stressed. Kosik's work is a basic rethinking of the concept of praxis which attempts to liberate the concept from orthodox Marxist reductionism. His political analysis of the Prague Spring examines the role of temporality, conventions, & artifice in political life. Modified HA.

Critical social theory's true dependence on liberal social theory is overlooked in contemporary theoretical thinking. The problem is addressed generally in terms of placing social thinkers such as Weber, Simmel, Freud, etc, in proper perspective with reference to Marxist social theory, & specifically in discussing Lukacs' development from neo-Kantian social theory to Marxism. The 2 concepts of "totality" & bildung are crucial to understanding bourgeois social theory; they lie at the base of the theoretical framework in which Lukacs' thought is analyzed, beginning with the early aesthetic works of 1908-1918. Special attention is given to analysis of HISTORY AND CLASS CONSCIOUSNESS (no publication information available) in which can be found a full discussion of bildung & concrete totality. Lukacs is attempting to delineate the relationship between 3 analytically distinguishable problem areas: (1) "part-whole mediations in the realm of 'pure' theory or dialectical logic," (2) "part-whole mediations in social theory," & (3) "part-whole mediations as experienced on a practical level by members of capitalist societies." Strengths & weaknesses of the arguments are analyzed. C. Grindle.

The revival of the Frankfurt Instit in the US has created a situation in which reeducation of theorists in the mode of the new critical social theory has become of paramount importance. However, M. Jay's theories concerning the Frankfurt tradition (see SA 2233/I4236) offer no directions for students of the Frankfurt tradition. Several oversimplifications concerning the nature of the Frankfurt critique of Mannheim comprise Jay's theoretical inadequacies. These are analyzed in detail with reference to the thoughts of other theorists most notably: T. Adorno, W. Benjamin, M. Horkheimer, R. Jacoby, G. Lukacs, & H. Marcuse. Questions arising from Jay's discussion are analyzed to illustrate the ways in which they "can perhaps be reposed as part of the legacy of critical theory for radical thought today." C. Grindle.

"Industrial Violence and the Legal Origins of Child Labor challenges existing understandings of child labor by tracing how law altered the meanings of work for young people in the United States between the Revolution and the Great Depression. Rather than locating these shifts in statutory reform or economic development, it finds the origin in litigations that occurred in the wake of industrial accidents incurred by young workers. Drawing on archival case records from the Appalachian South between the 1880s and the 1920s, the book argues that young workers and their families envisioned an industrial childhood that rested on negotiating safe workplaces, a vision at odds with child labor reform. Local court battles over industrial violence confronted working people with a legal language of childhood incapacity and slowly moved them to accept the lexicon of child labor. In this way, the law fashioned the broad social relations of modern industrial childhood"--Provided by publisher

James Schmidt evaluates the analysis of law and society in Israel on the Appomattox. Schmidt notes that Ely makes a signal contribution to our understanding about how the daily practice of law regarding free people of color in the antebellum South diverged significantly from the restrictive assertions of statute. Southern legal sources from outside Virginia support Ely's view. From a broader viewpoint, Schmidt suggests, these everyday legal enactments shored up social categories asserted through the raced language of the law, authorizing the in-between status of "free people of color" and constricting access to citizenship for free people of color.