Professor Laura Nader of U.C. Berkeley has penned an amazing work. At first glance Harmony Ideologyseems like a fairly mundane anthropological work on Zapotec Indians of Mexico and their law. The realityis quite different. Although slightly wordy, Nader's description of Zapotec dispute resolution is lively and usually interesting. She examines law cases in the spirit of Llewellyn and Hoebel's classic The Cheyenne Way, although Nader includes analyses cases that do not come to the authorities for resolution. This makes Nader's work both subtler and more accurate. Nader was the first legal anthropologist to emphasize with rigor that the users of systems of dispute resolution help shape and define it, and the study of legal systems must therefore emphasize disputes in all stages from formation to resolution (or nonresolution). In her analysis of the promotion of Christian harmony as a means of social control, Nader is nothing less than brilliant. She expertly uses through history and sociology to expose the motives and methods of Zapotec social control. And like any great work, Harmony Ideology uses facts from a narrow subject foreign to most readers' experience and applies them in such a way as to enlighten our own culture.

A book such as this is somewhat valuable, but I was disappointed by the narrowness of the people included. It's as if only Leftists in universities had any experience of the Cold War, and since we know this to be false, why not call this book "Leftist Academics and The Cold War University" or something? What about the old guys reading Latin texts in their offices who thought the world was going mad? What about old-fashioned Liberals who were profoundly ambivilent towards both the American Right and the Stalinist (and post-Stalinist)American Left? The editor was more interested, I suppose, in gathering lefty celebs with high name recognition than he was in getting a ground level view, and that mention of Studs Terkel in the above editorial comments made me yearn for some of Terkel's interest in the folks who are usually overlooked in the rush to sign up the people who've already had their say. Until a good oral history of that sort comes around, I guess this will have to do.

Viewing a political era from a particular point of view, from a subjective perspective can often manage to shed light on much more. The experiences reported by the individuals in this book are extremely well written stories that transcend the bounds of what at first seems a narrow topic. Still, if you have a particular interest in education and the politics of universities and colleges, you will find this book even more intriguing.

I find it very disturbing that people consider these professors as "Marxist Zealots". By your comment, A READER FROM THE USA, you demonstrate who is really misleading the public. Noam Chomsky is NOT a Marxist, he is an Anarchist. Get your facts straight. And to say that these people thought Pol Pot was a "great guy" only shows to which degree you are willing to fabricate lies in order to advance your own political bias. These people are against all forms of genocide and oppression, whether it be Stalin, Pol Pot or JFK and Richard Nixon.