| Book Review | The Journal of American History, 89.2

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| Book Review | The Journal of American History, 89.2 | The History Cooperative

Book Review

Waiting for Dead Men's Shoes: Origins and Development of the U.S. Navy's Officer Personnel System, 1793–1941. By Donald Chisholm. (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2001. xx, 883 pp. $125.00, ISBN 0-8047-3525-5.)

In Waiting for Dead Men's Shoes, Donald Chisholm explains "how the navy's officer personnel system got from its simple, relatively crude state in 1794" to its complex and fully elaborated "configuration in 1941" and "why it took the particular form it did." 1

The book is organized chronologically and contains a considerable amount of traditional administrative history. Although Chisholm acknowledges the value of both the "old institutionalism" and the "new institutionalism" used by various political scientists, economists, sociologists, and historians to study the creation, development, and transformation of institutions, he employs what he defines as "the problem-solving approach" used by some social scientists. 2

The structure, rules, and procedures of formal organizations result from the decisions of individuals acting on a day-by-day basis in professional capacities to solve problems that impinge upon their ability to get on with their business.

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