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Culture Matters: How Values Shape Human Progress, edited by Lawrence E. Harrison and Samuel P. Huntington. New York: Basic Books, 2000. 348 pages. $35.00 cloth. ISBN: 0-465-03175-7.
Culture Matters is the product of a symposium held under the sponsorship of Harvard University's Academy for International and Area Studies in April 1999. Edited by two distinguished scholars, and filled with contributions from sociologists, political scientists, economists, historians, and anthropologists, it is likely to attract considerable attention. Indeed, the basic thesis of most of the authors-that culture contributes to economic development-was discussed in the January 13, 2000 Arts and Ideas section of the New York Times in which the book was prominently featured.
Most of the contributors concur that culture plays an important role in contributing to both economic development and democracy. Huntington sums up the central thesis by quoting Daniel Patrick Moynihan, "The central conservative truth is that it is culture, not politics, that determines the success of a society. The central liberal truth is that politics can change a culture and save it from itself' (p. xiv). And, as Harrison writes, "A growing number of scholars, journalists, politicians, and development practitioners are focusing on the role of cultural values and attitudes as facilitators of, or obstacles to, progress" (p. xxi).
Following a brief foreword by Huntington and a more extensive introduction by Harrison, the book is divided into 22 chapters covering a wide range of subjects: Six discuss the impact of culture on economic development, three the impact of culture on political...