for other activities which might seem toncompensate for the lack of political activity—namely,norganized crime and reliancenon the nuclear family. Indeed, thentwo seem to reinforce each other and tonintermingle, a fact fixed indelibly innthe national consciousness by the twonGodfather films. The Mafia, however,nthough present in southern Italy, wasnnot, Sowell maintains, something thenItalians brought with them, for whennthey arrived in America it was theirn”turn” to take over organized crime, succeedingnthe Jews and the Irish who hadnby then taken up less aggressive pursuits.nThe arrival of prohibition made organizednracketeering much bigger than it hadnbeen previously. Further, as Sowellnpoints out, the intense family loyaltiesnand relative freedom from alcoholismnof Italians aided their survival in thenviolent and competitive business of sellingnillegal whiskey. Yet the point herenis not so much that America providedna grim opportunity in which the traditionalnItalian sense of family made themnsuccessful, but rather that this samensense of family had political effects asnwell. Italian reliance on the family isntypical mainly of southern Italians, fornwhom this was a form of protectionnagainst both their own nobility and thenwaves of invaders who overran that areancontinually for many centuries. Thesenpeople were mostly peasants completelyndependent on and subject to whatevernexternal power was in charge. Loyaltynto the family also proscribes givingnloyalty to any group or organization outsidenthe family, including the civil governmentnand the Church. Carried tonAmerica, a pattern emerges in whichnItalians rely less on government, civicnorganizations or public welfare thannother groups; this has made them lessnprominent in politics, both civil and ecclesiastical,nthan in proportion to theirnnumbers.nA- general pattern emerges, whenncomparing the Jews, the Irish and thenItalians, in which previous cultural conditioningninfluences their reaction tonconditions in America. At the sarrientime, Sowell also shows the differencesnamong the reactions of each of thesengroups as a result of specific characteristicsnof their heritage. Of course,nSowell doesn’t completely explain thendifferences in the “old country” patternsnof culture themselves, i.e. how the Jews,nIrish and Italians originally got thatnway. For instance, why did continuednoppression force the Irish closer tonCatholicism and the southern Italiansnaway from it.” Sowell makes a stab at itnbut it is not very convincing. This isna chicken-and-egg question, however,nfor no determinism, even a soft one likenSowell’s, can ever completely explainnthe complexities of human behavior.nOne last point about Sowell’s book itself:nit takes its place in a phalanx ofnnew and important scholarly works bynconservative authors, and it is this intellectualneffort which may be the basisnfor an enduring conservative politics.nWhatever happens to the Reagan administration,nthis body of work, now prominentlynincluding Sowell’s, will remain tonprovide the basis for a new and morenrealistic understanding of social reality.nH ow happy will integrationists benwhen they read Anne Wortham’s ThenOther Side of Racism? After all, if wencannot rest until we have representationnof minority people in the professions,nbusiness and academe equal to theirnproportions in the general populaition,nthen the same expectation ought to applynto ideology and politics as well. Indeed,nsome civil-rights spokesmen have encouragednblack participation in the RepublicannParty, although I suspect theynwould rather advise others to be Republicansnthan to do so themselves. As wenextend this expectation, there ought tonbe not only black liberals and socialists,nbut also black conservatives and, darenwe say it, black libertarians. In AnnenWortham we have a black writer who isnalso, as this well-argued book testifies,na libertarian. She has drunk deeply atnnnthe well of Ayn Rand and NathanielnBranden and has applied their theoriesnto an analysis of the psychology of thencivil-fights movement. Yet when integrationistsnread this book, they will notnbe happy; indeed, they will be angry asnhell.nNot that all their anger will be unjustified,nforlibertarianismhas tremendousnweaknesses as well as strengths whennapplied to a subject as intransigent andncomplex as race. The peculiar characternof the libertarian approach is to emphasizenthe nature and status of the individualnat the expense of the role societynplays in the establishment of our values,nnature and behavior. As one would expect,nMs. Wortham’s book concentratesnon individual psychology by providingnthe reader with profiles of five types ofnrace-conscious blacks. These profilesntake up about half the book and includenportraits of “The Conventional Integrationist,”n”The Power-seeking Nationalist,”n”The Spiritual Separatist,” “ThenIndependent Militant” and “The AmbivalentnAppeaser.” The discussions in thisnsection are frequently brilliant, withntheir clear and unflinching analyses of,nfor example, how guilt is used to manipulatenthe response of white society to thenadvantage of blacks. Less coherent, however,nis Ms. Wortham’s venture into sociologicalntheory—which frequently degeneratesninto jargon, as in her tediousnattempt to connect Branden’s theory ofnself-esteem with Reisman’s treatment ofnmarginal character. This book vividly illustratesnthe respective strengths andnweaknesses of libertarianism when appliednto America’s race problem.nOn the positive side. The Other Sidenof Racism presents a good argument thatnwhite discrimination against blacks hasnits corresponding vice in the Federalngovernment’s affirmative-action programs,nwhich discriminate againstnwhites on behalf of blacks. Thenpoint that affirmative action and whitenracism are two sides of the same coin isnnot new, but Ms. Wortham makes itnmore provocatively than most. The contradictionsnof the black-pride movement.n^^^•^^11nMarch/April 198Sn