First Published in 2011. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

What accounts for our tastes? Why and how do they change over time? In this innovative book Stanley Lieberson analyzes children's first names to develop an original theory of fashion. Children's names provide an opportunity to view the pure mechanisms of fashion, unaffected by commercial interests that influence many fashions and tastes, says Lieberson. He disputes the commonly held notion that tastes in names (and other fashions) simply reflect societal shifts. There exist also "internal taste mechanisms" that drive changes in fashion even in the absence of social change, Lieberson contends. He explores the intricate and subtle ways in which internal mechanisms operate in concert with social forces to determine our choices of names. And he applies these conclusions to classical music, the decline of the fedora, women's garments, and other examples of change in fashion. Examining extensive data on names over long periods of time, Lieberson discovers an orderly regularity to the process of change. He considers an array of naming practices-how Rebecca became a popular name, why the names of certain important and attractive biblical characters are rarely chosen, and the influence of movie stars and characters in movies and novels. The book also inquires into name selection by specific ethnic and racial groups-Mexicans' choices of names for their sons and daughters, African-American naming tastes from the time of slavery, changing names among American Jews throughout the twentieth century, and ethnic influences on naming in assimilated white groups. Lieberson concludes with a discussion of broader applications of internal mechanisms, suggesting that they operate widely in culture, across the entire "cultural surface."

This title reexamines and reconsiders the model of empirical research underlying most empirical work. The goal is neither a whitewash nor capital punishment, but rather it is to reform and mold empirical research into an activity that contributes as much as possible to a rigorous understanding of society. Without worrying about defining science or even determining the essence of the scientific enterprise, the goal is one that pools together logical thinking and empirically determined information. One of the fundamental issues to be addressed in this volume: Are there questions currently studied that are basically unanswerable even if the investigator had ideal nonexperimental data? If so, what are the alternative questions that can be dealt with successfully by empirical social research, and how should they be approached? In the chapters ahead, it will be important to keep in mind this doctrine of the undoable. Of course, one cannot simply mutter "undoable" when a difficult obstacle is encountered, turn off the computer, and look in the want ads for a new job-or at least a new task. Instead, it means considering if there is some inherent logical reason or sociological force that makes certain empirical questions unanswerable. There are four types of undoable questions to consider: those that are inherently impossible; those that are premature; those that are overly complicated; and those that empirical and theoretical knowledge have nullified.

There is little question that the descendants of the new European immigrant groups from Southern, Central, and Eastern Europe have done very well in the United States, reaching levels of achievement far above blacks. Yet the new Europeans began to migrate to the United States in 1880, a time when blacks were no longer slaves. Why have the new immigrants fared better than the blacks? This volume focuses on the historical origins of the current differences between the groups. Professor Lieberson scoured early U.S. censuses and used a variety of offbeat information sources to develop data that would throw light on this question, as well as provide new information on occupations at the turn of the century, finding remarkable parallels between the black position in the urban South and the urban North.He examines and compares progress in education and in politics between the new Europeans and the blacks. What were the effects of segregation? Why did labor unions discriminate more severely against blacks than against the new immigrant groups? This book will generate a fresh interpretation of the origins of black-new European differences, one which explains why other nonwhite groups, such as the Chinese and Japanese, have done relatively well.