No comments about Authors of Their Own Lives: Intellectual Autobiographies by Twenty American Sociologists.

No comments about Under the Covers: Discovering the Crazy Quilt of Life.

4 comments about Aurel Stein: Pioneer of the Silk Road.

1. This review addresses two questions: 1) why read a lengthy biography(s) of Sir Aurel Stein who, though famous in his lifetime and a continuing giant in scholarly circles, is today little known to the general public; and 2) which of the two biographies written about Stein should one read: Jeanette Mirsky's "Sir Aurel Stein--Archaeological Explorer" or Annabel Walker's "Aurel Stein--Pioneer of the Silk Road." (Both are available through Amazon.com.)
   
   As to the first question, Stein was the pioneering and dominant archaeologist in the re-discovery during the early 20th century of the ancient civilizations of the eastern Silk Road. The desert and mountain areas he worked in western China and its borderlands with India and Tibet were among the most physically challenging on the planet. And his various projects in life extended well beyond that into India, Pakistan, Persia, and Syria. So a biography of Stein is both an immersion in ancient history and its resurrection, and a tale of adventure and exploration--though, let it be said, it is adventure without theater, because Stein (and thus perforce his biographers) in his writings focused not on the many perils he encountered but on the scientific results he achieved. The adventurous life and amazing fortitude of the man nonetheless come through between the lines.
   
   The other, perhaps greater, reason to read a biography of Aurel Stein is not what he discovered, but who he was: his was the life fully lived. He remained active, healthy, and fully engaged until his death in Kabul in 1943 at age 81 on the verge of yet another archaeological expedition, and he lived his entire life vigorously and focused on a set of themes and projects for investigation which made that life amazingly productive, unified, and successful. It's what we all wish for ourselves--and from which many or most of us fall short. So this is a "feel good" story of human striving and great accomplishment. Until the modern era, we often read biographies of "great men" less for the particulars of the events they molded than for the models of character these people offered of how to live a good and significant life. An account of Stein's life is highly impressive and vicariously comforting in that regard, irrespective of your interest in the archaeology of the Silk Road.
   
   As to the second question, there are two biographies from which to choose (itself a tribute to Stein, since few archaeologists are deemed fit subjects by even one biographer.) Jeanette Mirsky deserves great credit as his pioneer biographer. But Annabel Walker's is the book to read first. If it hooks you on Stein, then you will also find Mirsky's worthwhile, since it in some ways complements Walker's.
   
   The two authors take different approaches. Walker's is a classic biography of external analysis which sorts the evidence. It is deep in insight, and moves quickly as a page-turner because Stein was always looking to the next project, which evolved logically out of his last endeavor or from new opportunities he encountered and exploited. His life thus follows a logical and linear but fascinating trajectory with a real sense of momentum. It's a sophisticated adventure story with a great spirit of unity and drive, and Walker captures that and with much insight smoothly analyzes the transition points (i.e., what lead to the next phase or episode) in a fast-paced but thorough account.
   
   Mirsky's book is half devoted to excerpts from Stein's letters--which were voluminous, highly literate, and have been remarkably well preserved. The other half of her book is Mirksy's narrative framework of analysis (which in some cases exceeds even Walker's perceptiveness of Stein.) So with Mirsky you have part analysis, and part Stein in his own words. This has advantages and disadvantages. It gives you a more direct feel for Stein's character in his own words, and through his letters covers some topics more deeply than Walker does, such as Stein's tactics in dealing with Chinese officials, the British bureaucracy's view of their headstrong employee (he was nominally a school inspector in India but continually sought special dispensation to focus on archaeological projects), and his generosity towards his subordinates.
   
   But Mirsky's attempt to mix analytical narrative with letter excerpts on a number of occasions lapses into more trivial detail from Stein's letters than necessary (Mirsky's book at 547 pre-index pages is no more complete in essence than Walker's at 355 pages), and at some points (particularly accounts of Stein's early life), it misses the forest for the trees and produces some confusion, in part due to failure to provide adequate editorial notes to explicate some of the names/incidents recounted in Stein's letters. Neither book, unfortunately, comes anywhere close to providing adequate maps with which to follow Stein's many journeys. But Walker's book is slightly better than Mirsky's in that regard.
   
   Bottom line: read Walker's book first. It is enough. But if you like this man as much as I did and get "hooked," you will much enjoy Mirsky's book and a more direct exposure to Sir Aurel Stein in his own words and to some of Mirsky's very insightful observations as a follow-on.



2. Aurel Stein was not without his faults. From all indications, he believed in the white man's burden, and probably would have tolerated fascism for its efficiency except for the realization that Hitler's brand of it included anti-Semitism, and Stein was Jewish. Even the subtitle of the book, Pioneer of the Silk Road, is Eurocentric: there were already people living in the areas Stein explored, members of tribes Stein seems to have had no interest in or ability to differentiate among. Stein was the first white archaeologist in the area, and he did open up new methods of what can only be called archaeological plunder. Stein felt that if he hadn't taken those antiquities, there was a good chance they would have been destroyed where they were. He didn't know they'd sit unviewed in the British Museum for almost a hundred years after he took them. The real crime is that they are not now given back to China to help right past injustices. Stein's racial and cultural attitudes were a product of his time. He was too stuck in the framework of his own culture to be able to judge any other culture except by the standards of his own. Annabel Walker acknowledges Stein's shortcomings and yet brings him to life as an interesting, sympathetic individual. He loved his family and friends and dogs dearly, but beyond that, he loved the great Asian wildernesses that he roamed in, often at extreme peril. Walker evokes those places, makes us see them as he did. Walker shows us the "pluck", as Stein liked to call it, of the man, as well as his determination to shape his life as he wanted it, to pursue what interested him. He died the way he lived, in action, pursuing his dream even in his old age. Annabel Walker writes with insight and equanimity. Her research is painstaking, her writing style enjoyable and thought-provoking.



3. It is only through the work and people like Aurel Stein that we can retain knowledge of the past which otherwise would be forgotten and lost in the hands of specialized predators and thieves. Well written book.



4. The man and his "competitors" were not above your common grave diggers. They simply dug and hauled treasures and historic artifacts out of their resting places and rubbed a people and the land of their heritage.

   Shame on those who consider them true archeologists.

No comments about Journal of Stephen Reynolds.

No comments about William Ewart Gladstone And His Contemporaries: Fifty Years Of Social And Political Progress.

1 comments about R.D. Laing: A Biography.

1. a most enjoyable, penetrating look into the mind of a genius. We see the beauty of Laing's thought and his amazing contributions to the field of mental health. We are treated to a thorough character assessment and loving, if at times probing, analysis of what Laing was all about.

   This work is written in a conversational but educated tone that lends itself nicely to the subject matter.

   Highly recommended if you have not read all the others.

No comments about Children Are the Reason Why.

2 comments about American Odyssey: Letters & Journals, 1940-1947.

1. Wilhelm Reich was many things in his lifetime- a student of Freud, a political activist, a research scientist, and an inventor. His work was decades ahead of its time and is finally being rediscovered and reevaluated by the public. If, like me, you are interested in Reich and his work, you might want to check out a novel called We All Fall Down, by Brian Caldwell. it draws heavily on Reich's theories, particularly Listen Little Man and The Mass Psychology Of Facism. It's a great introduction to Reich's work and the entire novel draws heavily on his theory. It's very interesting watching an author explore his theories in a fictional setting. Well worth reading.



2. American Odyssey is a lush garden filled with the innermost thoughts of Wilhelm Reich during the period he was establishing himself in America in the 1940's. He will have you smiling one moment and welling up with tears the next as you follow him through the maze of his lifework that evidences his being one of humanity's most creative and harrassed thinkers. Reich's concepts are certainly in line with free-thought today. His legacy of leaving his archives to the "children of the future," since they alone would most likely be the ones to understand and accept what he discovered, is falling nicely into place - exactly as Reich knew it would.

No comments about Horace Mann: His Ideas And Ideals.

5 comments about Why Freud Was Wrong: Sin, Science, And Psychoanalysis.

1. Read about 1,000 pages of Freud's writing before you make any judgements.



2. Richard Webster has done a marvellous job to show how fraudulent Freud really was. More revealing is that all ideas about the human psyche are to be questioned hereafter: the existence of defense mechanisms, existence of the death wish, the existence of the Ego, Superconscience and Id. If you ask me: nothing of these speculative concepts are really true. Webster shows quite convincingly the case against the 'diagnosis' conversion-hysteria. Still accepted in modern psychiatry but a complete misnomer: intrapsychic energy to be converted in physical pain/disorders, how? The whole Freudian thinking is still present in movies, television soaps and more frightening in forensic psychiatry, the military, national intelligence agencies, police departments. Obviously the 'dark side of mankind' has an extremely attractive side to it. What is frightening and disturbing is the fact that this whole conceptual pseudo-thinking about the human psyche (originated with Freud) really is a religionlike belief system. Very difficult to replace and really hindering better therapies for people who are suffering emotionally. Richard Webster's book should be thé textbook in psychology en psychiatry courses to show two things: 1. how our ideas about the human psyche and emotional system is largely based on a pseudo-theory and therefore a better alternative model of emotions and cognitions should be sought (for example in scientifically driven cognitive behaviour therapy).
   2. how science really should work and should not work.
   The strange thing is that Webster's book, to my knowledge, is nowhere in the world, really a textbook in psychology or psychiatry courses. Freud is still taught as if he has done some marvellous things and if some of his ideas are still correct. This is the most unbelievable thing of it all. And really frightening.



3. One looks back on the Freudian age with as much wonder at its flourishing as its sudden demise. The confusions of psychoanalytic thinking and the poor foundations on which it was laid were always concealed in the humanistic insights that gave the theory appeal and seeming cogency in the reign of positivism. This brilliant disguise behind an incoherent metapsychology hides a theory that was a casualty of the impossible demands placed on a science of psychology by the demands of reductionist science. Finally, in the account of Webster, we see the fatal account of the details of record in Freud's early research whose great success seems more a brilliant feat of paradigm promotion than of any breakthrough in science. The oddity of Freud's thinking is and remains a mystery in itself. The legacy of the invisible strain of Schopenhauer botched is seldom seen here, and the source of confusion over the 'unconscious' can be instantly clarified by seeing this positivist nosedive of the earlier 'right sense of the noumenal self' and its unknowability. Perhaps this was the poignant ambition of the scientist triumphant here, where defeat was foreordained by the philosopher.

   This book reads as a relief to anyone who survived the onslaught of this charming muddle with its impossible financial demands placed on the curse of being neurotic, even as one senses we have not heard the last of Freud. One might fault the conclusion where sociobiology is seen to come to the rescue with still another confusion of the basic issues in still another ambitious science whose fate will be another book like this one. But anyone who suffered the arm-twisting pretensions of this reign in thought will find a swift exit from the mesmerizing contradictions of Freud's theories. And yet a legacy of Freud remains as soon as the mind is freed to reconsider the issues from scratch without the fixation on certainty in the basic tenets. But for the moment it is important to simply a necessity to be free from the false claims and demands of what was an impostor theory, hard as it is to make that statement of one of the most enigmatic minds of the twentieth century. This book can be very helpful in simply moving on without looking back.




4. Among Webster's many scholarly achievements in this meticulous and devastating examination of Freud's life and work, he exposes the extraordinary number of myths about Freud which abounded in the twentieth century. A minor one is that Einstein was a great admirer of Freud. This is erroneous. In a letter to one of his sons in the early 1930s Einstein wrote that he was unconverted by Freud's writings and believed his methods dubious - even fraudulent (cited in *The Private Lives of Albert Einstein*, by Roger Highfield and Paul Carter, p. 233).



5. At the back of the book, a reviewer is quoted: "What a great demolition job!" And it really is. It puts Freud and all of his theories right where they belong: On history's scrapyard. The seriousity of this book is evident to the reader, one does not doubt that Websters side of the Freud story reveals some long hidden truths. Webster shows that all of Freuds "scientific findings" were nothing else than the thoughts of a very small man who hated mankind, and hated children most of all. Unfortunately, Freud also had a natural authority that made others fear and respect him, and tragicly enough, also believe him. Had Freud lived today, he would have been bancrupt hundred times over from loosing lawsuits, and perhaps also would have been put away behind bars. What Freud has done to patients is really an outrage. Webster also writes that his book is just the beginning - he has opened a door to the biographical facts, where most people have hesitated to go in before him. Freud protected himself from all future critisism by raising the self-made shield: "If you question Freuds truths, that proves that there's something psychologically very wrong with you". Now everyone can search without being brandmarked and stigmatized in this way. And as more people will start digging, the more we will see of the damage Freud did to his patients. And it will become more evident the damage he has done to the conception of Man for a whole century. After the demolition job is done, Webster concludes: Man is nothing even remotely what Freud has described us to be. And he follows up with the most important question of all: When we are nothing of what has been the dominating psychological view for hundred years - who and what and how are we then? And he encourages each and every one to join in the creating of a new and ultimately much more optimistic understanding of Man.