Books

  1. Participant Observer: Memoir of a Transatlantic Life
    Participant Observer: Memoir of a Transatlantic Life
  2. Freud: Conflict and Culture : Essays on His Life, Work, and Legacy
    Freud: Conflict and Culture : Essays on His Life, Work, and Legacy
  3. Sigmund Freud: A Concise Biography (Pocket Biography Series) [UNABRIDGED]
    Sigmund Freud: A Concise Biography (Pocket Biography Series) [UNABRIDGED]
  4. Thorstein Veblen and the American Way of Life
    Thorstein Veblen and the American Way of Life
  5. Bernardino De Sahagun: First Anthropologist
    Bernardino De Sahagun: First Anthropologist
  6. La rueda de la vida
    La rueda de la vida
  7. Freud, Race, and Gender
    Freud, Race, and Gender
  8. Norbert Elias: An Introduction
    Norbert Elias: An Introduction
  9. Encounters With Great Psychologists: Twelve Dramatic Portraits
    Encounters With Great Psychologists: Twelve Dramatic Portraits
  10. The Hit Men and the Kid Who Batted Ninth: Biggio, Valentin, Vaughn & Robinson : Together Again in the Big Leagues
    The Hit Men and the Kid Who Batted Ninth: Biggio, Valentin, Vaughn & Robinson : Together Again in the Big Leagues
  11. Tender Mercies: Inside the World of a Child Abuse Investigator
    Tender Mercies: Inside the World of a Child Abuse Investigator
  12. The Secret Chief: Conversations With a Pioneer of the Underground Psychedelic Therapy Movement
    The Secret Chief: Conversations With a Pioneer of the Underground Psychedelic Therapy Movement
  13. Freud, Leonardo Da Vinci, and the Vulture's Tail: A Refreshing Look at Leonardo's Sexuality
    Freud, Leonardo Da Vinci, and the Vulture's Tail: A Refreshing Look at Leonardo's Sexuality
  14. Nausea: The Wall and Other Stories
    Nausea: The Wall and Other Stories
  15. I Think I Scared Her: Growing Up With Psychosis
    I Think I Scared Her: Growing Up With Psychosis
  16. Freud: An Introduction to His Life and Work
    Freud: An Introduction to His Life and Work
  17. Face to Face With Children: The Life and Work of Clare Winnicott
    Face to Face With Children: The Life and Work of Clare Winnicott
  18. I Pay You to Listen, Not Talk
    I Pay You to Listen, Not Talk
  19. Small Acts Of Kindness: Striving For Derech Eretz In Everyday Life
    Small Acts Of Kindness: Striving For Derech Eretz In Everyday Life
  20. Search for Self: Selected Writings of Heinz Kohut: 1950-1978
    Search for Self: Selected Writings of Heinz Kohut: 1950-1978
  21. The Letters of Milton H. Erickson
    The Letters of Milton H. Erickson
  22. Insisting on the Impossible: The Life of Edwin Land (Sloan Technology Series)
    Insisting on the Impossible: The Life of Edwin Land (Sloan Technology Series)
  23. Andre Green at the Squiggle Foundation
    Andre Green at the Squiggle Foundation
  24. Jung: His Life & Work
    Jung: His Life & Work
  25. The Crucible of Experience: R.D. Laing and the Crisis of Psychotherapy
    The Crucible of Experience: R.D. Laing and the Crisis of Psychotherapy
Participant Observer: A Memoir of a Transatlantic Life
Average customer rating: 5 out of 5 stars
  • Participant Observer: Memoir of a Transatlantic Life, by Robin Fox
  • Participant Observer: Memoir of a Transatlantic Life, by Robin Fox
 Participant Observer: A Memoir of a Transatlantic Life
Robin Fox
Manufacturer: Transaction Publishers
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

GeneralGeneral | Biographies & Memoirs | Subjects | Books
Social Scientists & PsychologistsSocial Scientists & Psychologists | Professionals & Academics | Biographies & Memoirs | Subjects | Books
MemoirsMemoirs | Biographies & Memoirs | Subjects | Books
AnthropologyAnthropology | Social Sciences | Nonfiction | Subjects | Books | Cultural | Ethnobotany | Ethnology | Evolution | General | History & Philosophy | Physical | Primitive | Religious | Sociobiology
ASIN: 0765802384

Customer Reviews:

5 out of 5 stars Participant Observer: Memoir of a Transatlantic Life, by Robin Fox.......2006-03-01

Ever since Kinship and Marriage first appeared in 1967 -- the classic volume that first set forth the ground rules for understanding how kinship systems operate and which today remains the most widely published anthropological textbook -- Robin Fox's work continues to astound, delight, and challenge. In 1971 he and Lionel Tiger published The Imperial Animal, inaugurating a revolution in thinking with their argument that human beings are, in fact, part of the animal kingdom, that our evolutionary background needs to be taken into account, and that human behavior and culture are ultimately rooted in human nature. Perhaps the term sociobiology is familiar enough today, but when Fox and Tiger's findings were initially unleashed, the impact was nothing less than an intellectual earthquake.

A brilliant essayist and social theorist, much of Fox's subsequent career has been devoted to restoring to anthropology the heritage of Darwin. To that end he has marshaled evidence that cuts across disciplinary lines, and is as much at ease discussing ancient Hindu law or the fundamentals of primate behavior as the philosophers of the European enlightenment. Fox warns in his writings that unless more anthropologists consider biology and human nature in their attempts to understand the human condition, much of their work will be relegated to obscurity. All too often, he laments, scholarship has been driven by agenda rather than by evidence.

Over the course of his long career, Fox has made major contributions in other areas as well. As a linguist and ethnographer, he has written classic accounts of the Tory Islanders and Pueblo Indians, documenting ways of life that have since been lost. He founded the Department of Anthropology at Rutgers University. And he is an accomplished musician and lyric poet worthy of the great literary tradition of his birthright, England.

Now for the first time, Robin Fox has given us his life story. Written in the third person with epic verve, Participant Observer: Memoir of a Transatlantic Life, takes us back to his childhood in rural Pre-World War II southern England (still undergoing the throws of the industrial revolution) through the terrors of the Nazi bombardment to his subsequent adolescence at the London School of Economics. The compelling and entertaining narrative sweeps us along from Fox's earliest memories to the maturation of his ideas, from his first punishment from a grammar school teacher (Fox's crime was to give an honest but unorthodox answer to her question), to the difficulties he faced later when challenging long cherished paradigms by academics.

In short, Participant Observer: Memoir of a Transatlantic Life, is a breathtaking intellectual odyssey that not only spans the Atlantic but many kinds of worlds. We move from the debate halls of Oxford and Harvard -- with their jealousies, back biting and intellectual battles to the near-neolithic village life of Pueblo Indians of Cochiti, or the Tory Islanders off the coast of England, attempting to preserve their traditional ways of life. Through the telling we are treated to a fascinating array of characters who helped define the 20th century -- their human foibles as well as achievements. Fox is a master at describing the human comedy, and there is a delightful hilarity to much of his narrative -- well balanced against his nostalgia for the lost worlds and people he knew.

At times Participant Observer will have readers laughing out loud, at other times they will likely be moved by its poetic reflection and insight, and at all times pulled along by the excitement of the surge and clash of the great ideas that have helped forge our age (and unmask our species). Fox's own personal narrative moves skillfully in the midst of that giant river helping to steer its course. Here is the perfect marriage of literature and science, disproving the conventional view that it can`t be done. Fox's new book is a must for anyone who wants to understand more about this dynamic scholar: about the intellectual climate that shaped our time and which Fox himself significantly helped shape.

David M. Oestreicher, Ph.D., Independent Scholar

5 out of 5 stars Participant Observer: Memoir of a Transatlantic Life, by Robin Fox.......2006-03-01

Ever since Kinship and Marriage first appeared in 1967 -- the classic volume that first set forth the ground rules for understanding how kinship systems operate and which today remains the most widely published anthropological textbook -- Robin Fox's work continues to astound, delight, and challenge. In 1971 he and Lionel Tiger published The Imperial Animal, inaugurating a revolution in thinking with their argument that human beings are, in fact, part of the animal kingdom, that our evolutionary background needs to be taken into account, and that human behavior and culture are ultimately rooted in human nature. Perhaps the term sociobiology is familiar enough today, but when Fox and Tiger's findings were initially unleashed, the impact was nothing less than an intellectual earthquake.

A brilliant essayist and social theorist, much of Fox's subsequent career has been devoted to restoring to anthropology the heritage of Darwin. To that end he has marshaled evidence that cuts across disciplinary lines, and is as much at ease discussing ancient Hindu law or the fundamentals of primate behavior as the philosophers of the European enlightenment. Fox warns in his writings that unless more anthropologists consider biology and human nature in their attempts to understand the human condition, much of their work will be relegated to obscurity. All too often, he laments, scholarship has been driven by agenda rather than by evidence.

Over the course of his long career, Fox has made major contributions in other areas as well. As a linguist and ethnographer, he has written classic accounts of the Tory Islanders and Pueblo Indians, documenting ways of life that have since been lost. He founded the Department of Anthropology at Rutgers University. And he is an accomplished musician and lyric poet worthy of the great literary tradition of his birthright, England.

Now for the first time, Robin Fox has given us his life story. Written in the third person with epic verve, Participant Observer: Memoir of a Transatlantic Life, takes us back to his childhood in rural Pre-World War II southern England (still undergoing the throws of the industrial revolution) through the terrors of the Nazi bombardment to his subsequent adolescence at the London School of Economics. The compelling and entertaining narrative sweeps us along from Fox's earliest memories to the maturation of his ideas, from his first punishment from a grammar school teacher (Fox's crime was to give an honest but unorthodox answer to her question), to the difficulties he faced later when challenging long cherished paradigms by academics.

In short, Participant Observer: Memoir of a Transatlantic Life, is a breathtaking intellectual odyssey that not only spans the Atlantic but many kinds of worlds. We move from the debate halls of Oxford and Harvard -- with their jealousies, back biting and intellectual battles to the near-neolithic village life of Pueblo Indians of Cochiti, or the Tory Islanders off the coast of England, attempting to preserve their traditional ways of life. Through the telling we are treated to a fascinating array of characters who helped define the 20th century -- their human foibles as well as achievements. Fox is a master at describing the human comedy, and there is a delightful hilarity to much of his narrative -- well balanced against his nostalgia for the lost worlds and people he knew.

At times Participant Observer will have readers laughing out loud, at other times they will likely be moved by its poetic reflection and insight, and at all times pulled along by the excitement of the surge and clash of the great ideas that have helped forge our age (and unmask our species). Fox's own personal narrative moves skillfully in the midst of that giant river helping to steer its course. Here is the perfect marriage of literature and science, disproving the conventional view that it can`t be done. Fox's new book is a must for anyone who wants to understand more about this dynamic scholar: about the intellectual climate that shaped our time and which Fox himself significantly helped shape.

David M. Oestreicher , Ph.D., independent scholar.

Books:

  1. Such Stuff As Dreams Are Made On : The Autobiography and Journals of Helen M. Luke
  2. From Charity to Social Work: Mary E. Richmond and the Creation of an American Profession
  3. Participant Observer: Memoir of a Transatlantic Life
  4. The Lives Of Albert Ellis: The Authorized Biography
  5. Analyst of the Imagination: The Life and Work of Charles Rycroft
  6. La Doctora: The Journal of an American Doctor Practicing Medicine on the Amazon River
  7. Journal of Stephen Reynolds
  8. The Anatomy of Motive: The Fbi's Legendary Mindhunter Explores the Key to Understanding and Catching Violent Criminals
  9. Margaret Mead : A Biography (Greenwood Biographies)
  10. No Time for Lunch: Memoirs of a Inner City Psychologist

Books