accident. The officers
of the German General Staff were fully aware "that they were risking
general war" when they urged Austria to invade Serbia. Because many of
the clauses in the Triple Entente treaty were secret, German leaders
thought that Britain's support for France and Russia was ambivalent, mak-
ing "diplomatic and military victories all the more plausible" in the event
that Britain abandoned her allies at the outbreak of a major war.
The true lesson to be drawn...
Maryann N. Keller, in IEEE Spectrum (Oct. 1987), 345 East 47th St., New York, N.Y. 10017.
Predicting the future of the automobile industry, argues Keller, a vice- president of Furman Selz Mager Dietz & Birney, New York-based stock- brokers, is a risky business. Few auto analysts, for example, foresaw the sweeping changes that resulted from the energy crises of 1973 and 1979. Many current trends (such as increasing pickup truck sales) may suddenly end if gasoline prices rise sharply. Nonetheless,...
Mazda in Japan,
is manufactured in Mexico.
the design and engineering expertise to successfully challenge Japanese, European, or American car builders. Only the South Korean firm of Hyundai will be able to be a "global automaker," challenging existing Japa- nese, European, and American rivals. Other new car builders "cannot sur- vive without affiliating with a Japanese or Western partner."
Suthem Fcflmmy?
"The Economic Revolution in the American S...
1,000,000 be- tween 1950 and 1959; the displaced workers (mostly black) migrated to "high-unemployment ghettoes" in Northern cities rather than face con- tinuing poverty at home. The departure of these workers caused the aver-age Southern wage to rise still higher.
The major reason for the Southern economy's shift, Wright concludes, was that a new breed of Southern politicians refused to continue insularity. State officials now encouraged outside investment, through tax breaks, industrial...
Stephen A. woodbury and Robert G. Spiegel-
man, in The American Economic Review (Sept.
19871, 1313 21st Ave. South, Ste. 809, Nash-
ville, Term. 37212.
Unemployment benefits were originally designed to provide relief to work- ers laid off from jobs. In recent years, many economists have concluded that such insurance programs prolong joblessness reducing the pressure on unemployed workers to search for new jobs.
What can be done to alter these trends? Woodbury, an economist at Michigan State U...
the Book "How Children Learn Words" George A. Miller and Patricia M. Gildea, in Scientific American (Sept. 1987), 415 Madison Ave., New York, N.Y. 10017.
By the age of 12, the average child learns 5,000 new words each year, or about 13 every day-yet no more than 200 words are taught in a school year. How do children manage to learn so many words on their own? Miller, a psychologist at Princeton, and Gildea, professor of psychology at Rutgers University, believe students learn many new...
fifth and sixth graders in which new words were consistently rnisinter- preted, the authors concluded that tasks relying on the dictionary are "a waste of time."
Arbitrary vocabulary lists, the authors argue, isolate words from any context. Reading proves to be the most effective vehicle for vocabulary- building because it makes the reader want to understand new words. The authors found that only through "reading several million words per yearv-at least one and a half hours each...
the ACLI felt very confident about Social Security, and 55 percent are "not confident" that Medicare benefits will continue at current levels.
Edrnondson predicts that 50- to 64-year-olds will continue current spending and mobility habits for some time. But the clout of this age group will grow as the "baboom" generation ages: The U.S. Census Bureau ~redicts an 81 ~ercent rise in 50- to 64-vex-olds (to 59 million Ameri-
Poor bers "In Search of the Working Poor" by...
reducing the estimates of rural and small-town poverty dramatically. And most of the poor, he argues, will not see themselves as victims, but will instead "be seen as living lives that they choose to live.'
PRESS & TELEVISION
ss and Science "The Culture of Science Journalism" Dorothy
Nelkm, in Society (Sept.-Oct. 1987), Rutgers
Univ., New Brunswick, NJ. 08903.
Nineteenth-century American science journalists had a flair for false drama best described by a New York Sunday Wor...
Ellen Mickiewicz and Gregory Haley, in Slavic Review (Summer 1987), PO. Box 8180, Univ. of Texas, Austin, Tex. 78713.
In 1960 only five percent of the Soviet population had access to television; 1986 that figure had risen to 93 percent. Though a latecomer to the Soviet Union, television has had "an enormous effect" on the way Soviets acquire information, argue Mickiewicz, a political scientist, and Haley, a graduate student, both at Emory University.
Each evening, an estimated 150 million...