Hungarian Studies Newsletter, 1975 (3. évfolyam, 6-8. szám)
1975 / 8. szám
HUNGARIAN STUDIES NEWSLETTER BOOKS Birkos, Alexander S. and Lewis A.Tambs. EAST EUROPEAN AND SOVIET ECONOMIC AFFAIRS: A BIBLIOGRAPHY (1965-1973). Littleton, Col.: Libraries Unlimited, P.O. Box 263, Littleton, CO 80120, 1975. 170 pages, index. $10.00 cloth in the U.S. and Canada, $12.00 elsewhere. This is a bibliography of English-language books, and articles published between 1965 and 1973 regardless of the place of publication. The avowed purpose of the volume is to provide reading lists composed from books readily available in most large and medium-sized college libraries. Of the 1,168 entries, 117 deal with Hungary directly, and almost all of the 140 entries in the general area studies section include information on Hungary. The topical subdivisions include general economic surveys.agriculture,banking,consumption and standard of living, economic planning (in the Hungarian section also economic development and growth as well as economic policy and reform) foreign trade, industry, investment, labor, prices, social insurance, and wages. The volume contains indexes by author, title, publisher, and periodicals. This publication is another case where an otherwise attractive edition appears with blatant disregard for correct spelling, i.e. with the complete absence of diacritical marks. As it is, the Hungarian entries are awkward, to say the least. Compton, Paul A. SOME ASPECTS OF THE INTERNAL MIGRATION OF POPULATION IN HUNGARY SINCE 1957. Budapest: Demographic Research Institute, Central Statistical Office, 1971.293 pages, graphs, tables, diagrams. N.p., paper. (No. 33 publication of the Demographic Research Institute.) “Statistical data based on a continuous registration of permanent and temporary changes of residence show that about 10 percent of the population changes its residence annually,” - says the preface. “While temporary migration tends mostly from villages to the towns, the majority of permanent migrations cover the movements between villages. In the same time migration between towns is also considerable. Nevertheless, net effects of the permanent migration finally result [in] the permanent movement of the population from villages to towns and from peripheral regions to the central regions of the country.” The author spent more than a year in Hungary (1965-66) assisted by the British-Hungarian cultural exchange program, gathering data for his doctoral dissertation. This book is based on this data and is a revised version of the dissertation. Partial results of his data were published earlier in Demográfia and Statisztikai Szemle. The heavily documented book is divided into three parts and 12 chapters, dealing with special patterns of migration, determinants of migration, and potential population changes in Hungary. 53 tables and 37 figures provide ample data in the text and in the appendix. References to sources at the end of each chapter are useful aids to those interested in the subject. A list of publications of the Demographic Research Institute is included on page 293. Dr. Compton is Lecturer in Geography at The Queen’s U. of Belfast, Northern Ireland. Gati, Charles. THE POLITICS OF MODERNIZATION IN EASTERN EUROPE; Testing the Soviet Model. New York: Praeger, 111 Fourth Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10003, 1974. 389 pages, tables. $22.50 cloth. Written by a group of elite experts of Eastern Europe, the volume attempts to answer one question:“Does the basically Western-made notion of modernization, which has been formulated and refined largely in response to development in the Third World, provide an accurate or even helpful framework for the study of the socialist polities of Eastern Europe?” The answers presented are based on papers given at a conference on the impact of modernization on political development in Eastern Europe, held at Columbia U. in 1973. Part I deals with the topic on a theoretical and ideological level; Part II presents four case studies, one of them on Hungary written by Gati (a reprint of his article “Modernization and Communist Power in Hungary” from the East European Quarterly, 5:3, pp. 325-359). Without denying the primacy of external influences he focuses on the internal background of communist hegemony in Hungary, and maintains that “fundamental changes in the fabric of the Hungarian society. . .had set the stage for the approaching revolutionary change.” He asserts that revolutionary change per se was not in question, only its form, and the choice was between the populist-agrarian model and the communistindustrial model. Part III contains papers on the relationship of Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union; and Part IV is on the compromise between tradition and modernity. A statistical appendix adds 22 more tables to the 59 contained in the text. Dr. Gati is Prof, of Political Science and the Director of the Program in Comparative Communist Studies at Union College. Note: We should not tire to complain about the absence of diacritical marks on Hungarian words in Praeger publications. (Continued on page 2)
