One of the important sources for the increase of human knowledge is the keeping of careful records of a system over time, the study of which may reveal patterns and relationships that otherwise would not be perceived. Despite the existence of more than 60 years of national income statistics and their various components and supplements, such as unemployment and labor force figures, price levels, relative prices, etc, there has been a dismaying lag in the use of this data to detect previously unrecognized relationships among economic variables. One of the reasons for this disturbing lack of attention to such patterns is the 18th-century celestial-mechanics type of mathematics that is generally in use. Deterministic dynamic mathematical models are often inappropriate to the structural and topological complexities of the economic system, particularly to the instability of its fundamental parameters. This intriguing new book is a step towards an interpretation of the record in terms of topological patterns represented by a variety of graphs. The type of long-run topological analysis on which this book is based reveals some striking properties of the American economy which conventional economics and econometrics have tended to miss. One of these is the relative insignificance of the Federal government, even during the period of the New Deal. Also suggested by the data are the unexpected effects of governmental action. Preeminent economist Kenneth Boulding offers this study not only as a means of coming to a better understanding of our past and present economic systems, but also as an aid to decision-making about the future. If the decisions made in the present are based on unrealistic inferences, he maintains, then they are likely to make the future worse than it might have been.
Kenneth E. Boulding is Professor at the Institute of Behavioral Science at the University of Colorado.
"A discerning, sober, and troubling probing of the preoccupation within the Methodist Church with Christian nationalism, civilization as defined by white Anglo-Saxon manhood, and race, race consciousness and 'the problem of the Negro' that was foundational to and constitutive of a reunited Methodism. A must read for students of early 20th century America."-Russell E. Richey, Emory University "Davis . . . brings to his study a sophisticated understanding of the nature of race, using his examination of the Methodist tradition to draw larger conclusions about the creation of a white Christian nationalism in early twentieth-century America. -"The Journal of American History", "Draws upon previously neglected primary sources to offer a ground-breaking analysis of the intertwined political, racial, and religious dynamics at work in the institutional merging of three American Methodist denominations in 1939. Davis boldly examines the conflicted ethics behind a dominant American religious culture's justification and preservation of racial segregation in the reformulation of its post-slavery institutional presence in American society. His work provides a much-needed, critical discussion of the racial issues that pervaded American religion and culture in the early twentieth century."-Wendy J. Deichmann Edwards, Academic Dean and Associate Professor of History and Theology, United Theological Seminary, Dayton Ohio "Morris L. Davis has made a major contribution to the literature in this examination of the denominational cultures that resulted in the racial segregation of the Central Jurisdiction of the Methodist Episcopal Church."-"Choice", "The Methodist Unification underscores the immense power that race has held in American, and Methodist, consciousness, and its ability to shape the politics of both church and state." -"Church History",
