The Southwestern Historical Quarterly, Volume 87, July 1983 - April, 1984 Page: 444

Southwestern Historical Quarterly

nary life on the ranch, Morehead's Texas is a good and agreeable place
to be with a good and agreeable man.
Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars RONNIE DUGGER
Washington, D.C.
Texas Shrimpers: Community, Capitalism, and the Sea. By Robert Lee
Maril. (College Station, Tex.: Texas A8M University Press, 1983.
Pp. xii+222. Preface, acknowledgments, map, tables, figures, pho-
tographs, bibliography, index. $18.)
Robert Lee Maril's study of the Texas shrimper is a contemporary
sociological investigation and not a historical treatment of the subject.
He divides the book into three parts: a description of the work of
shrimping itself, a look at the shrimpers' social standing in the com-
munity, and an identification of the major economic forces influencing
the industry. In the first part Maril describes the specific responsibili-
ties of the header, rigger, and boat captain, and includes some demo-
graphic analysis of these employees. Part two concerns the social inter-
action between the shrimpers and the community when the shrimpers
are in port. In the third section of the book, Maril examines market-
place relationships among the shrimpers, business, government, and the
unions.
Maril's treatment of the subject is interesting and straightforward
but loses some coherence when he interjects a short social history of
Texas shrimpers into his sociological discussion of shrimpers in port.
His account also has a certain vagueness because Maril unconsciously
(or consciously) fails to document exactly which Texas port city he is
describing in each case. As a result, the study has a limited usefulness
to academia outside sociology.

444

Lamar University, Orange

ROBERT H. PEEBLES