)d its political<br >eeted bv the<br >center wifh a mixture of suspicion， uneasiness， and outrage，<br >Haven in a Heartless World has baffled ideologues of every po-<br >litical color. A book that resists assimilation to predigested posi-<br >tions offends those for whom politics consists of ready-made<br >answers and automatic loyalties. To such readers， Haven will<br >continue to present itself as a difficult， "obscure，" "recondite"<br >book. On the other hand， it has proved readily accessible to<br >those who care more about the problem it addresses--the ero-<br >sion of family life in contemporary society--than about the me-<br >chanical exercise of squaring its approach to the subject with<br >received political pieties. ~，~<br > An Associated Press correspondent has described the book，<br >with more enthusiasm than understanding， as "a rousing defense<br >of traditional values，" an "apparent contradiction" of the author s<br >"reputation as a radical." Nathan Glazer finds in it the criticism<br >of state intervention "one might have expected from a conserva-<br >tive or traditionalist， but hardly from a representative of the rad-<br >ical Left." George Gilder， more daring in his analysis of the<br >author s motives， dismisses the "Marxist buncombe" that " dis-<br >guises" this "marvelously reactionary book"--this " otherwise<br >shrewd and brilliant critique of the pretensions of modern social<br >science"--as a purely rhetorical gesture designed to appease aca-<br >demic readers， for whom the bitter pill of conservatism must be<br >coated with socialist cant.<br > A number of writers on the left have also found the book，<br >predictably， to be reactionary in its political orientation--though<br >hardly "marvelous" in their eyes. Mark Poster pontificates: " To<br > glorify the old bourgeois family is to idealize the men and<br >women who dominated society during the heroic age of capital-<br >ism."- Th~ta~ok is an agenda for restoring the bourgeois fam-<br >ily， ~es in， Edward Shorter. Even Wini Breines， a radical<br > sociologist who should know better， thinks Haven is flawed by<br > "nostalgia" for the patriarchal family.<br ><br >