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This volume is essentially a collection of essays by psychiatrists, psychoanalysts, psychologists, and sociologists. Each essay is followed by a brief discussion by a different discussant. It is divided into four parts: I, Historical and Biographic; II, Individual Dynamics; III, Differential Regional Studies; IV, Social Dynamics.
After a rather phlegmatic and frustrating beginning it picks up interesting momentum. The word dynamics in the title is rather misleading because the essays, on the whole, lack the depth and thrust of what one looks for psychoanalytically in terms of an emphasis on psychological forces, their direction, magnitude, and resultants as outlined by Rapaport and Gill. There is a mutual contamination of individual and group issues that partially precludes a thorough and lucid pursuit of either; this is especially true in the Individual Dynamics section. Charles A. Pinderhughes's essay, The Dynamics of Dissent, suffers from this in its failure to probe more completely into individual genetic and dynamic considerations and becomes diffuse by shifting too broadly and superficially to group collations. Kenneth Keniston's essay, Psychological Issues of Young Radicals, is a provoking synthesis, as far as it goes, of social and individual dynamics, with some philosophical forays present such as 'the growing sense of rightness', but it fails in an expected specificity as its discussant, Robert J. Weiss, states, 'I agree with Professor Keniston that there are no special psychological characteristics of development or of personality which identify the young radical from the rest of society'.
Rather than dynamics the word descriptions seems more appropriate in the title. And sociological descriptions are this book's delightful forte. Details of the social evolution of the Negro are most informative. The dissent of the young, especially the young black, is featured. Sheldon Cohen's essay, Rebel and Reactionary, Siblings Under the Skin?, is a type