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BOOK REVIEWS The Creative Elite in America. By Nathaniel Weyl. Washington: Public Affairs Press, 1966. Pp. 236. $6.00. The brains of our country, and incidentally ofmost other lands, are re-explained and measured by rather new and powerful statistical techniques instead of by the subjective appraisals or citing of instances which have hitherto been our mainstay, most unreliable from their snobbish ethnocentric tendency. With his customary energy, assistance, and computer, Weyl has selected seventy-five different "rosters ofeminence," such as Who's Who, members ofvarious professions, and attainers of various indicia of success. Next, he found about 140 surnames distinctive ofnational origin, including 8 per cent ofall social security card holders, and corrected this for the frequency ofNegroes bearing each name. Then, by comparing the frequency ofa national group ofnames, in the various occupations or indicia ofsuccess, against the frequency ofthose names in the general population, he obtains very significant measures ofthe fields ofwork, degrees ofsuccess, and essential merit of each national contingent in our population. Further abundant data lie here for each reader to make his own inquiries. For instance, some ofthe seventy-five rosters of eminence represent bygone decades, most represent the present, and some the future, in the persons ofcollege students and new Phi Beta Kappans, so one can perceive the marked changes which each group has been undergoing and now faces for its future. These well-based findings are often surprising and valuable for our population policy as to immigration and the encouragement of births or birth control in various groups. In science, generally, theJews are outstanding, as they are in most other categories except the Social Register and indexes ofwealth. And in superior degree, the Germans, Dutch, Puritans, Scotch, and Scandinavians lead in science. Four rosters of medical professions show the Jews with about four times the American average, followed far after by the Chinese and Scotch. The scientific eminence of the Scandinavians, despite their fairly recent and humble immigration, may be explained by Scandinavia's having known only five centuries ofenforced clerical celibacy, which exterminated so many people choosing an intellectual life; whereas the rest of Europe which became Protestant had kept the priests and monastics celibate for about eleven centuries and as they still are in southern Europe. Many explanations are sought, in past selections ofpeople favored to get born, survive, or immigrate, explaining the present differences, sought with great learning and acumen, and not claimed as proved, but good ideas. Special attention is given to the sexual and social history of the Jews, explaining their intellectual preeminence, especially through their tradition that a learned man or his daughter is supremely desirable to marry. But the Jews are not given favored treatment: Their prudish and unsavory 319 traditions are not spared, nor is their present fivefold preeminence in lists ofsubversives. Weyl's study ofsurnames is carried a novel step further, proving within a nationality wide differences ofrank among its names—especially among theJews whose surnames are ofrecent origin. Levine, Epstein, Stern, Shapiro, and Kaplan outrank by nine to four in descending order such names as Cohen in twenty rosters of eminence. The explanation is to be found in the learned rank of the original bearers. So the English names Clark, Palmer, Draper, and Miner outrank other English names for similar reasons, and the Clarkes are a bit better than the Clarks, while the Puritan names from southern New England far outrank the common English names, as Huntington had shown. A fine book, crammed with novel and well-proved data on all the races and kiths in our country. S. Colum Gilfillan, Ph.D. I2i¡ Ocean Avenue Santa Monica, California 90401 The Living Races ofMan. By Carleton S. Coon, with Edward E. Hunt,Jr. New York: Knopf, 1965. Pp. xxxii+344+xx. $10.00. Carleton Coon is a great anthropologist because he has recognized fundamental problems ofhis subject and has given fresh and reasoned insights into them. These problems are: (1) How did the modem races ofman evolve in the Pleistocene? (2) What adaptive significance is there in the differences among human races? The first ofthese was scarcely even noted before his recent book, The Origin ofRaces fi], and the publication in 1950...

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