When a generation ago G. W. J. Drewes brought to a close his trailblazing study of Javanese millenarian concepts he predicted their decline. As a propaganda device in the arena of modern politics they might perhaps retain some value, he believed, but their inherent strength and uniqueness would gradually diminish. Perhaps Drewes' philological pre-occupation led him to neglect the anthropological dynamics of the messianic currents that he studied in the Javanese religious records. In any event his prediction seemed to assume that the efficacy of the millenarian expectations as propaganda could be independent of the enduring cultural matrix of which these expectations are an inseparable part. Far from losing their inherent vitality the messianic ideas of the Javanese have, as the following pages will argue, remained strong and influential; only the cultural forms by which they are nowadays expressed have changed. In this analysis attention will first be paid to the traditional cosmology of the Javanese as it is reflected in their major cultural motifs. Next the impact of Hindu-Indian, Islamic and Western (both religious and secular) influences on this cosmology will be considered. Finally, the nature of the messianic expectations in the Javanese experience will be described, also in terms of their contemporary manifestations.

Dr. Mair's feeling of inconclusiveness, after an examination of so much material, comes, I believe, from a failure to choose the right units. Anthropologists have traditionally dealt only with those cults which arose among primitive – that is, preliterate – peoples in situations of contact with advanced cultures. They have left to historians the discussion of cults within part-literate societies in the past, and to sociologists, social psychologists and psychiatrists the study of contemporary cult phenomena in modern literate societies. Recent work in the narrowly defined anthropological studies has made possible the delineation of differences attributable to culture area, date and conditions of culture contact, and discrimination between the retrospective orientation of American Indian nativistic cults, like the Ghost Dance, and the future-oriented cults of the Southwest Pacific, the Cargo cults. Dr. Mair discusses a third regional type, the cults of South Africa. Such organization of materials by period and area does make it possible to demonstrate that cults differ in form and content, in different times and different places. They do not help us isolate the universals involved. The area frame of reference gives no detail about the specific tribal situation, the personality of the leader and the other personnel of the cult. It is too large for detailed psychological explanation of social process, and too narrow for the understanding of cult formation as a social process.

Social mobility in traditional China, particularly during the last two dynasties, Ming (1368–1644) and Ch'ing (1644–1911), for which ample data are available, deserves systematic study by both Chinese and Western historians and social scientists. It is remarkable to observe that in a meticulously “regulated” society such as traditional China's, there was probably a greater amount of vertical mobility, both upward and downward, than is usually found in pre-modern and modern societies of the West. What makes this more striking is the fact that it occurred in a society which for twenty-five centuries believed in the inequality of men. For this reason alone the question of social mobility in traditional China should be of more than usual interest to theoretical sociologists with a comparative approach to their subject. Owing to the author's limited knowledge of Western sociology and also because of limitations of space, this article deals mainly with China, although brief comparisons with pre-modern and modern Western societies will be attempted at certain points.

In spite of all the complex controversies concerning the interplay of religious ideas and economic forces at the end of the Middle Ages the investigation of the pre-existing medieval poor law has been rather neglected by modern scholars. Evidently enough attitudes toward the relief of poverty are as significant as attitudes toward the acquisition of wealth in gauging the climate of economic thought in any given age. Yet, apart from studies on hospital administration, little has been done in this field of medieval research since the pioneering works of Ratzinger, Emminghaus, Ehrle, Uhlhorn and Ashley in the nineteenth century. Since then the attitudes of social welfare experts to the problems of poor relief have radically changed and a great mass of source material unknown to the earlier writers, notably the work of the medieval canonists, has come to the attention of historians. Both these facts suggest a need for some reconsideration of medieval attitudes to the poor and to the relief of poverty.

A twentieth century social scientist is bound to be impressed by this paper and it should drive him back to ask more fundamental questions about modern social legislation. He will, however, be bound to feel a little disappointed by the fact that the same degree of scholastic rigour has not been applied to the ideas of modern social legislators as has been applied to those of the Decretists.

The question that Mr. Tierney calls the perennial problem of poor relief, whether eligibility should be determined by need alone or by other considerations, has not yet been settled. It is true that once eligibility for certain types of aid has been established, we no longer inquire into the moral character of the recipients, or attempt to fix an order of preference among them. But the fact that some categories of need are recognized by law, while others are not (or at least are less fully recognized) indicates that we still regard some of the needy as more deserving of assistance than others. Helping the poor, however, is by no means the only aim of modern benevolence. Our social agencies engage in many activities and offer numerous services that have little to do with the economic situation of those who benefit from them; and both public and private decisions concerning welfare are influenced by factors other than need or worthiness.

The Second International Congress of Historians of the United States and Mexico met at the University of Texas, Austin, Texas, November 3–6, 1958. The Congress was sponsored by the University of Texas, the American Historical Association and the Texas State Historical Association, representing U.S. scholars, and by the University of Mexico, the National Institute of Anthropology and History, and the Academy of Historical Sciences of Monterrey, representing Mexico. Included on the program were distinguished anthropologists and historians from Spain, France, Britain, Canada, Australia, Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Mexico, and the United States. In addition special representatives from almost every United States and Mexican university attended the sessions of the Congress. Among those present were José Locarra and Guillermo Cespedes of Spain, Philippe Wolff and François Chevalier of France, Geoffrey Barraclough of Britain, Claudio Sanchez-Albornoz of Argentina, José Honorio Rodrigues of Brazil, A.R.M. Lower of Canada, Sir Keith Hancock of Australia, Edmundo O'Gorman, Antonio Castro Leal, and Daniel Cosío Villegas of Mexico, and Frank H. H. Roberts, Charles J. Bishko, Ray Billington, William Hogan, John S. Galbraith, Robert S. Lopez, Boyd Shafer, and Arthur Whitaker of the United States. Associated with the Congress was a special exhibit of books from the university presses of the United States and Mexico and also an unusual exhibition of Mexican art gathered together from private collections and museums from all over the United States.

For the first time in its history, the National University of Colombia has a Department of Sociology. Organized temporarily within the Faculty of Economic Sciences, the new department is directed by Orlando Fals Borda, a Colombian sociologist trained in the United States, author of widely known studies of Latin American peasant societies, and since January 1959 Director General of the Ministry of Agriculture. The department starts with fundamental courses and contemplates giving degrees after the fourth year. Fifty-six persons applied for admission in the first year.