The symposium is a dangerous form of book construction. At worst the fruit may be a “non-book”—an accretion of articles standing in an almost random relationship one to the other. At best many expert minds may be brought to common focus in polychromatic illumination of a complex problem denied to the competence of the usual professional working alone. The book-by-committee here under review is more coherent than most of its kind and a reasonably sophisticated addition to the literature on the military as a social institution and as a force for change in the underdeveloped world. But one could still wish that Editor Johnson had been more sternly martial in deploying his forces.

The book opens with two theoretical statements, one by the political sociologist, Edward Shils, and the other by the political scientist, Lucian W. Pye, a specialist in the comparative politics of Southeast Asia. The case studies begin with three concerning Latin America written by Johnson, Edwin Lieuwen, and Víctor Alba. Then follow the examples of Indonesia (by Guy J. Pauker), Burma (by Lucian W. Pye again), Thailand (by David A. Wilson), the Middle East (by Manfred Halpern), Israel (by Ben Halpern), and sub-Saharan Africa (by James S. Coleman and Belmont Brice, Jr.). As is clear, all the authors are well qualified to write on their chosen areas, and some are brilliantly equipped, as their contributions amply demonstrate. The absence of a set of integrating conclusions is deeply regrettable, the volume’s single most striking flaw, and unhappily a logical consequence of the fact that the ease studies are not directly linked to either of the two theoretical statements.

Shils’ chapter attempts too much for its length, being a general theory of political development rich with subtlety and suggestiveness but disappointing in its unconvincing ordering of its argument and in an almost total neglect of factors of chronology. Pye’s contribution, more specifically directed toward the role of the army in modernization, is engaging in its directness and incisiveness and could most profitably have been used to guide the subsequent case studies. Or best, the theoretical base line should have been drawn by the editor himself from his wide Latin American knowledge and wisdom. The effect of not giving full weight to Latin American data concerning the developmental process is given away in a revealing slip made by Shils. “In Latin America,” he states, “the armed forces historically have played a role similar to that of the military in many of the new states of Asia and Africa.” The statement is methodologically, historically, and conceptually backwards, of course, and should read, “In many of the new states of Asia and Africa, the armed forces are playing a role historically similar to that of the military in Latin America.

The three Latin American chapters are all good, even if some conclusions remain debatable. Johnson’s treatment of the military as a “politically competing group in transitional society” is cool and reasoned, and neatly hooks militarism (“the domination of the military man over the civilian”) into total social patterns. A footnote to Lieuwen’s chapter acknowledges that much of the “substance . . . is drawn from . . . Arms and Politics in Latin America . . .,” but the summary is good and there is a freshening and modifying of data and insights. And Alba adds the touch of the Hispanic view and the set of “proposed solutions” needed to round out the Latin American section with, nicety.

Nothing is more clearly revealed by this study than the utility of drawing base lines out of the Latin American experience for comparative application to the emergent nations. Specialists on Latin America should not hesitate to make their theoretical contributions to the study of development elsewhere; the time for the modesty of the inferiority complex should be over.