NONFICTION - June 23, 1991

BOYS WILL BE BOYS: Breaking the Link Between Masculinity and Violence by Myriam Miedzian (Doubleday: $20; 337 pp.). This book’s title is likely to remind men of the dismissive comment that mom made years ago, the one which sent them tumbling from the jungles of Africa, where they were Tarzan, by reminding them that they were really just little boys playing in the back yard. Indeed, they would be wise to brace themselves before reading this author, a philosopher and social worker, for she fashions a most persuasive case against the social institutions which raised them to be “men”: History courses which dutifully chronicle battles without teaching nonviolent conflict resolution, boys’ aisles at toy stores (which look “more like military arsenals”) and coaches who preach winning at any cost instead of fostering teamwork. “Boys Will Be Boys” is a powerful book, offering many insights into why America’s crime rates lead the industrialized world, though one can fault Miedzian for various errors of fact (she forgets Korea in her tally of 48,000 foreign war deaths since World War II), interpretation (Anthony Storr never claimed that women weren’t aggressive) and omission (she doesn’t consider the possibility that children simply won’t watch TV if all violence is banned).