characteristics of the business, its dependence on active managers making

decisions daily without the framework of routine, its limited technology readily
available to competitors, and its absence of large capital required for material
and plant. The discussion of the quite intricate and frequently fortuitous interac-
tion between demand, prosperity, and government support sustained by de-
mography, inflation, and politics, which runs a^a red threat through the book,
explains the establishment of a mass market. It thrived on the suburban explo-
sion of the 1950s and the expansions and mergers of firms in the 1960s, weath-
ered the recession of 1973-75, and functioned once again when the inflation of
the late 1970s regenerated big companies.
On that remarkable record of economic success Ned Eichler bases his strong
conviction that "merchant building has served the American consumer well."
(p. 271) In support he stresses that the percentage of American families owning
their homes has almost doubled since the end of the Second World War,
reversing the low generated by the years of depression and war. His prognosis
for the future depends on the government's determination to curb inflation. If
control reduces its level, he foresees a painful transition for builders and buyers,
but predicts that an average national production of about 1.5 million units would
approximate the most efficient operation of the industry. A concern for a broad
historical perspective on the single-family home in American culture seems to
be outside his interests. He also does not consider the effect of the building
booms on such resources as agricultural land and open space in the vicinity of
large cities. His treatment of the energy problem, which became obvious in
1973, regards an "ability to adapt to changing conditions" as the surest way to
cope with "every painful transition." (p. 290) The author relates the complex tale
of a new industry rather well and comments perceptively and critically on the
ups and downs of its operations and economics. Perhaps it may not be justified to
expect also from him an awareness that irreplaceable resources and fundamental
relationships between people and environment are beyond the operation of faith
and ingenuity when nothing is left to adjust to.

Gunther Barth, Professor of History in the University of California at Berke-

ley, has worked on the cultural and social aspects of American urban history.

JEWS AND MONEY: THE MYTHS AND THE REALITY. By GeraldKrefetz.

New Haven: Ticknor if Fields, 1982. Pp. xi + 267. $13.95.
Reviewed by Stephen J. Whitfield
When an erstwhile Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General George S.
Brown, accused the Jews of controlling American banks and media and exercis-
ing undue influence thanks to their wealth, he was — perhaps unwittingly —
tapping one of the key sources of the anti-Semitic imagination. From Judas to
Shylock to Fagin, the religious heritage, the artistic monuments and the folk
beliefs of Christendom have ascribed to the Jews an excessive and sinister
association with filthy lucre. That is perhaps why, apart from such invaluable
studies as Salo W Baron et al., Economic History of the Jews, scholars have
generally avoided so ticklish a subject.
Gerald Krefetz, an investment consultant and business writer, is well aware
than an analysis of the relationship between contemporary American Jewry and
private wealth "is inflammatory no matter how cautiously handled" (p. ix). But
BOOK REVIEWS 135
the author's desire to distinguish stereotypes from actuality has fortunately
outweighed his doubts about propriety. And even though some of the myths
turn out to be true (Jewish family income is 72% above the national average), this
is not the sort of book that will force employees of the ethnic defense agencies to
put in overtime. In a field in which scholarship is thin and source elusive, Jews
and Money is an unsensational, modest and often informative volume.
It is not, however, a comprehensive or sustained treatment of American Jewish
economic activity. With a next-slide-please briskness, Krefetz guides his readers
through chapters on the occupational structure of American Jewry (especially
retailing), on the historic necessity of wealth for survival (bribery of European
authorities, appeasement of European mobs), on the predilection for medicine
and law, on OPEC and the Arab boycott of American companies too intimately
associated with "Zionism, ' and on philanthropy. It is a shrewd, distinctive touch
to have included a chapter on poor Jews (estimated at about 13%, roughly the
same proportion as in the general population that is below the poverty line).
Krefetz also notes how excluded Jews have been from commercial banking, thus
disproving General Brown, although the Jewish involvement in investment
banking is more striking. But the author's lengthy treatment of the art world
hardly seems justified by its pertinence to general Jewish enterprise, especially
since some of the richest American Jews (according to Forbes magazine, Sep-
tember 13, 1982) are in real estate — a field Krefetz entirely ignores. A separate
chapter on crime, which lumps together Meyer Lansky, Louis Wolfson, Eli
Black, and nursing home czar Bernard Bergman, also seems idiosyncratic,
especially since Krefetz's claim to be treading upon terra incognita is false.
Jews and Money is not a work of significant scholarship, nor does it pretend to
be. Its prose is succinct, crisp and as casual as a slumber party. Ordinarily the
absence of an historical sense is not disgraceful, but in this case the lack of
historical grounding impairs the conception and execution of the book. Krefetz
has no hypothesis to test, no argument to marshal, and therefore no principles by
which evidence could be presented to compel intellectual interest and assent.
Indeed the loose structure of the book and the looser generalizations it incorpo-
rates seem almost to invite disagreement.
For example, the chapters on law and medicine imply — but nowhere
demonstrate — that the high incomes of these professions offer an adequate
explanation for their appeal to Jews. Such a motivation can hardly be discounted.
But Jews, who have historically been a pariah people with a conspicuous
commitment to learning, are attracted to all the liberal professions, even those
(like teaching) where the financial rewards are overshadowed by status and
prestige. Nor does Krefetz attempt to explain why so many Jews have gravitated
toward the least lucrative precincts even within the most honored professions,
such as medical research and teaching or civil rights and civil liberties litigation.
Jews and Money concludes with the observation that, as religious and racial
anti-Semitism has waned, the social and economic resentment against dispropor-
tionate Jewish wealth may become more important. Krefetz paradoxically ob-
serves that bigotry may be less the consequence of such affluence than the cause
of it, inspiring a beleaguered minority to feats of entrepreneurship. Such a
conclusion is dubious and — especially in the light of recent scholarship on
ethnicity — rather quaint. Discrimination alone cannot account for income
disparities in the United States. Racism has not enlarged the wealth of blacks or
Chicanos, nor can the problem of incongruities in ethnic achievement be
addressed without consideration of the cultural values endemic to minority
136 BUSINESS HISTORY REVIEW
groups. Scholars who pick up the leads in Max Weber's work on Calvinism or
Werner Sombart's on Judaism, correlating cultural signals to capitalist impera-
tives, are more likely to illuminate phenomena like Jewish business achieve-
ment — and may even avoid generating new myths of their own.

Stephen J. Whitfield is Associate Professor of American Studies at Brandeis

University.

SOUTHERN BUSINESSMEN AND DESEGRECATION. Edited by

Elizabeth Jacoway and David R. Colburn. Baton Rouge, Louisiana State Uni-
versity Press, 1982. Pp. x + 300. $27.50.
Reviewed by Monroe Billington
This volume relates the response of the white business community in fourteen
southern cities to the challenge of desegregation. The chapters, each written by
a different author, focus on selected cities of varying sizes, with dissimilar
economic bases, and with different social conditions. They range from Dallas
through Louisville to Norfolk on the outer rim of the South, and include three
major Deep South cities: New Orleans, Birmingham, and Atlanta. Smaller cities
included are Tampa, St. Augustine, Jackson, Augusta, Columbia, and Greens-
boro. Rounding out the list are Little Rock and Memphis.
Some of these essays deal with businessmen's reaction to school desegrega-
tion, while others give attention to events resulting from the desegregation
of public accommodations. Many of the business leaders had to contend with
violence and riots, while others struggled with tensions simmering just under
the surface. Despite the diversity of local conditions and individual reactions,
a fairly definite pattern of collective response occurred in city after city in the
1950s and 1960s. After an initial gasp of shock, surprise, and resentment in
regard to federal or "outside ' intervention, the city's business leadership lapsed
into silence, creating a power vacuum and permitting the growth and influence
of extremist elements. As the realities of economic loss and the inevitability of
change became obvious, the business leaders awoke to the consequences of their
silence and their city's continued resistance to federal orders. At this point, the
businesssmen resumed their traditional positions of community leadership,
organizing themselves into biracial committees and pressure groups. But they
did not necessarily become committed advocates of the civil rights movement.
As they confronted belligerent groups and recalcitrant state officials, they side-
stepped the central question of integration versus segregation; rather they
argued for open schools, community stability, social order, and economic pro-
gress. When these leaders accepted their responsibilities and became advocates
of change (however reluctantly), they kept the desegregation process in most of
the cities from being more difficult than it otherwise would have been. Because
of their efforts the defenses of segregation began to crumble and the South took
its first halting steps toward becoming a desegregated society.
The contributors to this volume, judiciously using both oral and printed
sources, contend that the southerners yielded to the demands for change
because of a fundamental reordering of their priorities: although the mainte-
nance of white supremacy remained important, it was relegated to second place
when it adversely affected business profits and the South's economic growth.
BOOK REVIEWS 137