5 comments about Gang Leader for a Day: A Rogue Sociologist Takes to the Streets.

1. This book follows a young graduate student from the University of Chicago as he naively wanders into a housing project on Chicago's South Side, and a chance meeting with an up-and-coming gang leader, J.T., gives him almost unlimited access to one of the largest crack cocaine dealing gangs in Chicago.
   
   It is fascinating to watch Sudhir become entangled and embedded with the tenants and gangs, despite warnings and recommendations for his professors to not get emotionally attached. How could he not? I found myself unable to put this book down. My heart broke with the plans to demolish the Robert Taylor Homes. Even though they weren't very safe and certainly weren't acceptable living conditions, the tenants and gangs established a give-and-take, sometimes ruled by fear, but a way to survive.
   
   The writing style is clear, and gives the reader a chronological summary of what it was like to practically live in the Robert Taylor projects for the better part of a decade. Time moves quickly, and Sudhir gains access to more and more people throughout the course of the book. I was both amazed and saddened at the way of life, the way to make it day to day in the housing projects. This book sheds light on the extortion and corruption of everyone who lives there, each one justifying what they do to make it another day. An excellent and quick read.



2. Gang Leader for a Day is certainly an entertaining, captivating and quick read. It's a page-turner, I'll give it that. But, it left my stomach churning.
   
   This book is a written account of Venkatesh's doctoral work at the University of Chicago's Department of Sociology (a legendary program). Yet, anyone familiar with social science research will be left befuddled upon reading this book. Venkatesh skirts the explicit ethical requirements of social research throughout his project, to an amazing and sickening degree. He exploits the already-marginalized population of poor Blacks for his personal gain - lying to them throughout his project, deceiving them of his purpose, and knowingly placing certain persons in harms way. For me, this book was an exercise in ego and exploitation, and a prime example of what NOT to do in research.
   
   If it were simply a personal account of someone who hung out with gang members for the heck of it, it would still be an example of exploitation and entitlement - but it would end there. Unfortunately, it is the account of a successful sociologist who knowingly violated professional ethics and exploited an impoverished community for the betterment of his career. (for a more technical/academic explanation, see: Puff the Magic Sociologist from the Tenured Radical)
   
   Read? Sure. But do so with a critical eye and some basic knowledge on the ethical obligations of social researchers.



3. A very interesting piece of urban sociology / anthropology (although ignore the "Rogue Sociologist" nonsense in the title) , which brings to life a hidden, closed community in the Chicago projects, largely ignored by the outside world and run on a basis of fear, petty corruption and intimidation by the local gang, local police, and local power brokers. The comparison with "Gomorrah" for any who have read that, is striking.
   Reading this there are a couple of points that struck me; firstly in a distorted way in the absence of any other form of authority its not surprising that the gangs fill the vacuum and act as some form of community organisation even if the principle source of income is in selling crack to its own community. Secondly how poor communities will always prey on each other. Thirdly how all of this could be solved or at least made better, by a sensible drug policy (rather than head in sand prohibition) that took away the gang's profit motive - for, as stated in the book, revenues from prostitution, extortion and other illegal activities are relatively small beer and not enough to attract many to "thug life". And fourthly, how the richest country in the world can effectively abandon some of its most vulnerable citizens to their fate
   But this is highly recommended as a light on what for me anyway was a dark and hidden world



4. While I wasn't much of a fan of Freakonomics as a whole, the chapter giving an economic analysis of drug gangs was an interesting take on a well-worn subject. When I heard that the chapter had been expanded into an entire book, I made a point to get my hands on a copy, the next time I was in the US.
   
   However, the book fell short, and was much less interesting than the shorter take in Freakonomics. Rather than any sort of academic or economic analysis, it felt like more like a collection of anecdotes, perhaps it could have been titled "my crazy life living amongst the project dwellers."
   
   I think the author's outsider perspective is a basic flaw to describing life in an early 90s project - such a book would have been better written by a long-term resident. Additionally, the author isn't a very engaging author, and none of the personalities described felt alive, or like anything more than one-dimensional stereotypes.



5. This book was "riveting" as The New York Times put it. Sudhir's "rogueness" comes from his missteps as a graduate student learning as he was simultaneously in the field. He learned that he should have followed the Internal Review Board I.R.B. procedures in protecting the identities of those he studied only after he began studying them. This is common however, and you just have to hide the identities of those you study by switching names in anything you write. His adventures began right outside his own door near the U of C near Hyde Park in the South-side of Chicago. The same place that we later learned our current President Barack Obama also focused much of his attention on the plight of ordinary Americans caught up in perpetual gang violence and drug infested areas. For many American citizens, it is impossible to think that this can take place in America today, but Sudhir brings to light the fact that this scoial phenomena does in fact take place in urban environments, and now even rural environments with crystal meth - on a daily basis.
   I couldn't help but draw similarities between the Robert Taylor housing tenants and Afghanis. Many people do not want to live under constant stress of gang violence, but must not only participate in its perpetuation, but they must also play active key roles in it in order to survive. To Pierre Bourdieu, this practical mastery of your environment and every day habitus would explain why this sort of lifestyle is perpetuated, manifesting in cost/benefit ratio analysis of each and every person you talk to not knowing if he/she is a "snitch."
   The Taliban hold similar sway over Afghanis today. Once American troops leave, then what? The Taliban will simply bribe local police and officials, work their way into politics, and ultimately corrupt the Afghani government to perpetuate daily practices of the Taliban. Once a gangster = always a gangster.
   I just hope "J.T." was able to put his street smarts to work and go to college. America actually needs people like him in power in order to make our, what seems to be, failing economic system become fruitful again.

5 comments about Down These Mean Streets.

1. Bill Cosby once said "in the old days you couldn't skip school, because there was an eye behind every drawn curtain, and when your mother got off the bus she'd hear where you'd been."
   
   Cosby wasn't entirely right. In the old days, there were kids in the poor Black neighborhoods who skipped school, stole, got in fights, sold/used drugs, etc. Piri Thomas was one of them, and his story is very disturbing. His family, Puerto Rican and Cuban, has a problem with race (I won't spoil it by elaborating) and his father settles every disagreement with a slap. He leaves home for the streets, drifting through the poor and unhealthy underground of the Puerto Rican and Black worlds in Harlem.
   
   I had no idea there was a Puerto Rican community in NYC back in the 1930's and 40's. This book tells you a lot about the sleazy and dangerous side of urban life in the old days. Like today, kids went to the streets, not because it was fun, but because it was a substitute for the family love that the kids weren't getting.
   
   It's like my grandfather used to, there never were any "good old days."



2. This book is written so well that you can feel the streets and his life as he felt them, it is as if you were living through that era and through his experiences with him. If you lived through that era or have experienced some of the things he did in your life it brings you back to your own childhood with a nostalgic feeling. It does have some curses which I don't really care for, it is the way he expresses specific feelings, or things he or others specifically expressed at that time, but fortunately is not that much. It has that NYC streets authenticity; the story was written decades ago but certain parts feel as if they were written yesterday. It is an excellent book that is straight forward and hard to put down once you get into it; by the time you know it, you're done.



3. Down These Mean Streets was a breakthrough book for Latinos. For a Chicano like me, it was like the Autobiography of Malcolm X was for African Americans. Even though Thomas was writing about an East coast that I have never known, I felt like this was the first book to make me aware that there were experiences that were like mine that weren't only mine. Like the Chicano poet Ricardo Sanchez, anger was something political but dealt with best through poetic words and language.



4. This is a hard book to figure. It's so simple and poorly written it would seem to be for slow readers or middle schoolers, yet the filthy language makes its questionable for unsophisticated readers.
   
   There is a huge problem with the narration. Mr. Thomas is writing 10 years after the story ends, when he is supposedly a changed and more educated man, but throughout the story reverts to his uneducated gangland Spanish, I guess to keep it real. Throughout, he is incredibly violent, thoughtless, race obsessed, and self absorbed. Yet he offers no apologies to the family members or innocent bystanders he's hurt. He refers to his illegitimate son, but never gets back to him. Ironically, his family tried to better the situation by moving out to Long Island, but he ran back the world of crime and poverty, supposedly because two white kids said something that hurt his feelings.
   
   Apparently in prison, and afterward, he dabbled in religion to help get himself straight, yet he makes no clear statement of what his new beliefs are. In one troubling scene he counsels with a black Muslim inmate who constantly refers to whites as devils. In the end, he does not convert to Islam, but seems to have no problem with this form of racism. The story ends with him tempted to share heroin with a junky and barely pulling himself away. This hardly shows him to be a changed man, and we have no idea what's happened since. He constantly refers to Trina, his love interest, but never gives us any feeling for what sets her apart. He mentions she's pretty, but he's apparently not motivated by lust, since he bangs other women throughout while saving her for marriage. Despite his constant mention of her, we really know nothing about her.
   
   In the afterword, written in 1997, 68 year Mr. Thomas seems to have learned nothing, blaming the problems of the inner city on racism and the Clinton era welfare reforms. Naturally, there's no mention of single parent families, welfare dependency, radical Islam, or the Balkanization of the American identity as having anything to do with the continued miseries. Guess he knows politically where his bread gets buttered.
   
   It's not a bad read, but it has no educational value and does not belong in a school curriculum.



5. I HAVE NOT RECEIVED THIS BOOK THAT I PURCHASED OVER A MONTH AGO SO I WOULD NOT KNOW HOW TO RATE IT.

5 comments about Manson in His Own Words: The Shocking Confessions of 'The Most Dangerous Man Alive'.

1. Not only would I say that this book provides some lesser known aspects of Manson and his life, I would say it is vital to recognizing how manipulative and dangerous people can succeed. Not even a few chapters into the book, and I could tell that Manson is as distorted in his perceptions of his own actions as he is accurately perceptive of other people's personalities, especially their vulnerabilities. It is little wonder to me that he holds such a fixation on the public mind (for the character of his terribleness), as well as the individual minds of his fanatics (for what they must perceive as something prophetic), and yet it is difficult to pinpoint precisely what it is about him that gives him this ambiance. After reading this, I discredited the opinion that Manson was so manipulative that he could literally control minds and actions of his followers. Were he such a mastermind, I'd say he would never have been caught. What I took away was how his perspective on life can somehow be infectious to those who let themselves listen. What's more, I think he appeals naturally to people who feel helpless, pained, and who are very vulnerable (and I am of the opinion that helplessness and pain are far too common across the population). What appals me more than anything is Manson's ready willingness to justify (to himself) his using other people for his own self-aggrandized objectives. People who have the insight into other's suffering, and who use that insight to take advantage of that suffering is also something I think is far too common across the population.



2. A book so unique & rarely seen., 30 Aug 2009
   
   
   The best study of mankind, is man (it's said)
   Charles Manson is here being exposed naked almost.
   Readable and coherent, yet abstract thoughts make a lot of sense, when taking everything into consideration here.
   It's often wrongly assumed by some reviewers that his always rationalising his crimes, I bet you would too?
   Extremely open as he is, we hear the tales of Manson here revealed. Just study all material of TV conducted interviews, his drawing obvious parallels with a smear of sardonic wrath along his words; it's both pure and tragic at the same time.
   
   There is nothing much to gain for him no more, except maintaining him self to certain ambivalent point, a valid point indeed! (a Supernatural cult leader) a typical stigma he was dubbed by the media, who afterwards call every word of his ``INSANE``
   
   No hoax, but told to people who might have lived another life and does not cope with the moral of such diversity. His not even trying to paint a heroic picture of him self. I can recommend this book to anyone without conform and corrupted values from society, anyone who can think for them selves!
   It's obvious this is a part of the American experience to me. Or the uncontrolled chaos this world thus possess!
   
   What are you waiting for? Buy.
   
   I can recommend - The Gates of Janus (Serial killing and its analysis, by the Moors Murderer `Ian Brady`
   
   If you want to read a perhaps more sophisticated view from another point of view.
   
   But I highly appreciate Manson for putting it straight in an excellent way.
   Don't worry Charlie, I can handle it. It all makes sense this more you talk openly about it.
   What really bother me are peoples libel moral always has to attack people for standing up, even behind bars till they die, we shall only hear the truth from others? I would assume that the best entangled goodies are staying with the murder and his persona. Unfortunately this purchase of books is rarely seen. Despite the police and society trying to act out all normal and best sheltered from what they really produce and enhance mentally unto people.



3. MANSON IN HIS OWN WORDS - BEWARE , 'DREAMS YE CONQUER CARE!'
   
   Hello there fans of amazon.com Manson litterature - just to let everyone know , Manson in His Own Word isn't by Manson himself.
   Ask yourself; why should a man who has got all the time in the whole wide world to leave his body and go anywhere he wants , go spend some time write a book he didn't even announce , seemingly on any interview that he was gonna write?
   Let's never underestimate the fact that Charles Manson is Charles Manson , and that like the wolf , scorpion and black panther , Charles Manson is so unpredicteable that I sound like a dammer when I say to all the five and four star viewers here that this book wasn't written by him. I trusted my source and made a decision in advance since , that from then on I'd write a critical review on Manson In His Own Words that'd expose the myth that the book had in fact been written or compiled by Charles Manson , number two , that it was a good book , and number three , that Manson would be likely to spend vast amounts of time to pin down some words in some script instead of doing the soul of the world thing - which is his music.
   After having seen the white and red covered , now internationally acclaimed Manson movie , I feel I have somewhat more of an understanding of Manson's mind than many others. As a teenager I felt I understood Manson to the point that I drew a picture of myself , bald headed with a nazi swastika between my eyes to emphasize the concept of what we felt then to be holy or sheer terror. I was obsessed with exorcicing any fear inside of myself at that time - that is during my teenagehood years , and I was thus seriously sinister as a teenager and I enjoyed that reputation. But just because I may feel so on what I feel to be my understanding of how Charles Manson's mind works or operates , that's just me - no need to take seriously any content in a statement I make on such an issue , because everyone is free to have their own opinions - the people of the world are entitled to free speech.
   Manson could utter all he needed to utter and why should he have had any need to put that down on a few pages? A book compiled by Manson would in my view be a gigantic volume filled with all kinds of psychedelic imagery which not even the author of this book would be finding himself or herself in a position to comprehend fully.
   On atwa.be. Charles Manson said that God is air - and that without air , we cannot be. So this gives in my view a whole different meaning the concept of our ideas and beliefs being sort of air - without them , we can't forge the years ahead in our societies. No matter how many or few Charlie may have killed or how he may have behaved , no matter how sane or less than sane he may appear , because we're all one and we're all manifestations of the Infinite , the more we lie to ourselves and cheat on ourselves and beat our little ones before we put them to bed , the harder we are on ourselves and the less we are really saying , and everything we are saying becomes a kind of chit chat - thus , we're lying to Charlie.
   That is , we are lying to him when we're lying to ourselves , and encouraging ourselves to be more violent than is necessary by being more violent than is necessary. Once peoples'seemingly ceaseless desire to lie to themselves so much ceases to be , it becomes easier to rise above that need and move on. In Charlie's world , Charlie can be a racist one moment and a humanist the other - but that's his path - and anyone around or near him has to make their choises on what path to follow - and those beyoud.
   So I say to anyone who wishes to give this book a try - I felt I was somehow obliged to leave a warning in advance stating this book is no good. I might wanna own a copy in the far future but I seeeeeeriously doupt if that copy'll do me any good at all. The study of Charles Manson is a direct look at our own innermost self reflection - and it depends upon each one of us whom it is being reflected in the mirror. That's why beauty is truly in the eyes of the beholder when it comes to do a serious analysis of the meaning behind the concept of the persona who is Charles Manson.



4. I would definetly suggest this book to everyone. I couldn't put it down and Nuel Emmons is an excellent writer.



5. This book is a great read! It really captures the kind of person Charles Manson is; a person just like you and me who happened to get thrown on the wrong path in society. I couldn't stop turning the pages. Although at times this book can be gory & drug crazed, it is also captivating & relaistic. I highly recommend!

5 comments about Turning Stones: My Days and Nights with Children at Risk: A Caseworker's Story.

1. After I started reading, I didn't want to put it down. Some sad cases but cases like those are everywhere--not just in New York or the bigger cities, they happen in small towns and little places as well. Wonderful!!



2. I really enjoyed this book. I work for Child Protective Services (investigations) myself and rereading this book recently helped motivate me and remind me why I am in this field. Some cases live in your head forever, and I can relate to some of the feelings and experiences described by the author. Definitely recommended.



3. It was hard to get into,it was supposed ot be about cases and a caseworker, and the stories are pretty cool but he spent 3 pages talking about mumbo jumbo..stuff that wasn't irrelevant.
   The cases weren't as bad as other books I 've read on this subject.
   it was ok but i wouldn't read it again
   t



4. When a book has 'children at risk' in the subtitle, you might expect some bloviating op-ed column in book form rife with numerous stats and a preening sense of self-importance in its outrage ("I'm a prophet. Hear me roar!").
   
   But this author primarily tells stories, cases he dealt with as a NYC Emergency Child Services caseworker. By virtue of the sweat and tears of his experience, the author is able to relay wild heartbreaking stories without getting mired in a sentimental or sensational mood.
   
   "...how quickly, with a simple twist of the dial, the deepest calm can turn to chaos--how stealthy the chaos is and what a convincing costume of serenity it wears..." The author shows how the rationale behind seemingly horrific acts can follow some kind of logic underneath. A boy considers killing his baby brother, but not because the boy is demon possessed. Two caseworkers remove a child who is kicking and screaming in front of disgusted onlookers, but are really following the protocols of their job as best as they can under the circumstances.
   
   This book is a real eye opener into some dark corners where children have lived. Still, the author rounds out the book with some sobering, yet heartening things to say. "Where despair and abuse spread back across generations, there are no such things as knockout punches." "The only way to lose this fight is to stop fighting."



5. As social workers we need to always advocate for chilldren at risk, unfortunately there are some fundamental flaws to the "system" which makes even our most caring workers burn out too fast. A real, gripping, honest portrayal raises this book high above the rest. For a fictional account, readers might want to check out RETURNABLE GIRL, about a teen in foster care who must choose between the woman who wants to adopt her and the mother who abandoned her.

5 comments about The Happy Hooker: My Own Story.

1. Growing up, I would sometimes sneak peeks at my older brother's Penthouse magazines. Yeah, like any other boy, I know. One thing that struck me, even at such a young, tender and (becoming less) innocent (by the day) age was the Call Me Madam column. I mean, I had pictures - good, professional pictures - right in front of me. And yet I just couldn't help but read Xaviera Hollander's columns. Every time I struggled with myself - who wants to read words when I can just check out the fleshfest? Every time I lost the struggle, with my eyes returning to those lips at the column's heading. Man, those pages were great.
   
   No surprise I picked up Hollander's THE HAPPY HOOKER and devoured it. Extremely entertaining, Hollander takes us through her whole sexual history, and what a history it is. After discovering sex, she just had to share the pleasure with everyone she met! The escapades in South Africa, teaching half the boys on a vacation island the ropes, experimenting with girls, the woman's whole life was a preparation for entering, and conquering, the world's oldest profession.
   
   One thing that makes THE HAPPY HOOKER so fun is that Xaviera (may I call you by your first name, please) herself is having such a blast. So many books by those in the sex biz revolve around their pathologies, emotional traumas and daddy issues. That Xaviera did it, had a blast, and tells everyone around what a good time all that bonking really was really makes this book the classic. Give it to the sex grouches in your life and tell them to lighten up.



2. Anyone who can sell well over 15 million copies of their book, must have something going for them. In Xaviera Hollander's case it's SEX! SEX! SEX!
   
   That subject always seems to sell, but what makes THE HAPPY HOOKER such a sinful delight, is just how much she enjoyed her work as the world's most famous madam and ever active prostitute. As so thoroughly and often clinically described, she really knows how to turn on both men and women and even both at the same time. And because of that she was bound to attract the attention of the not so understanding competition and the police.
   
   In 1960's New York, police corruption was rampant to say the least, Xaviera's co-author Robin Moore certainly knows that subject from having written THE FRENCH CONNECTION. I imagine he helped with that side of the book whilst MISTRESS Hollander concentrated on what she knows best. Her customer's tales and fetishes, their needs and demands, may not be everyone's cup of tea, but theres plenty on offer here for any reader whether at bedtime or on that break from work. Numerous studies show prostitution should be fully legal, controlled and regarded as any other "service" industry. Of course we're a long way from that happening. But pornography took a while to be fully accepted and look how well thats done, specially on wall street. Don't forget illegal gambling, off-track betting and the numbers racket and interest only loans becoming legit as well.
   
   Where would the everso righteous politicians be without the sex for sale industry. Xaviera's financial climax came in writing this book,not from running her brothel which at best had a hard job breaking even, what with all the police raids, lawyer exspenses, payoffs and bad debts she had to contend with in her business. As she saids and then there are the clothes`for the "sissy boys", the whips and chains, condoms, bed laundering and all that lubricant. With all that in mind, how how many of us can truely say we enjoy what we do? THE HAPPY HOOKER is both horny and honest about what she once did.



3. Perhaps this is my second time to read it after more than 15 years.It has always impressed me.and i wonder how how a human being could express this level of honesty to tell the most private life which most of us are ashamed even to think about telling. I feel very few tell such story and is quite natural to be like her acording Freud'view.More over it is written in splendid literary flow and i really appreciate her for the top level work she produced for the reader.



4. I read this book at a friend's house in the 1970's - so many of us high school buddies grabbed it off his bookshelf that he barely noticed. There's even an autobiography interspersed between the pages of gratuitous sex, as Ms. Hollander describes her upbringing in Holland, and her life as a prostitute and madam in New York City. Then, ofcourse, comes more descriptions of her escapades with men, women, couples, etc., in those days before most people worried about safety. This book may be less stunning in today's era of DVD and cyber-porn, but that doesn't exactly elevate it to literature. Still, it's readable style helped sell 15 million copies, leading one to surmise that trashy books have an erotic effect on more men and women than will admit it.



5. This book is a sexy classic. As a sex worker in New York, I found this book to be truthful and entertaining at the same time (although dated in many respects). You will find yourself liking her because she never feels sorry for herself and truly loves the business. She is street smart, funny, and feminine with no apologies. It's too bad they made such a bad movie adaption - I would love to see another one made!

No comments about Otto Neurath.

5 comments about Kindness of Strangers.

1. I'm not at all the mushy, touchy-feely type. All the same, I found this book to be a great read, and a great story. The fact that someone had the cojones to actually set off across America with minimal resources instead of just talking about it is inspiring. Mike meets some very colorful characters along the way, and in the end finds that indeed there is probably more good than bad out there. Highly recommend this one.



2. I love all of the stories that Mike tells of his journey from the west to the east coast...He made me laugh and weep twice...I wonder where Mike McIntyre is now? Apparently this was his only book that he wrote. I wonder if he is now in middle America somewhere enjoying life...
   Mike... you need to write a follow up on what happened to you after you came back to California. Did you give up your journalist job and settle down and find peace somewhere else?...Anyway, I really loved this book and after two week I can't get it out of my mind...Bravo!!!



3. This book was so entertaining. I couldn't put it down. I kept wondering what would happen on the next leg of his trip and if he would make it or not to his final destination. I would even go back and read parts aloud to my husband, who is not a reader, and he was hooked also.



4. Uplifting, There are good people out there, and the most generous sometimes have the least.



5. in light of recent events this book shed a ray of light on the dimming light of humanity in our world. A man leaves home with only identification and hitch hikes across the country relying only on the "kindness of strangers." Although he clearly points out that were he not male and caucasion the outcome could have been much different, the story is still heart warming. I have recommended this to sooo many friends and all have thanked me profusely for helping them search their hearts and souls with out being battered with questions of faith.

5 comments about Blackberry Winter: My Earlier Years.

1. Margaret Mead lived her whole life with a passion and intensity that never abandoned her. The sense of urgency in which she seized each day was linked to her choice of anthropology as an academic discipline. "When I was a graduate student I used to wake up saying to myself: "The last man on Raratonga who knows anything about the past will probably die today". I must hurry." "Even in remote parts of the world ways of life about which nothing was known were vanishing before the onslaught of civilization. The work of recording these unknown ways of life had to be done now--now--or they would be lost forever. Other things could wait, but not this most urgent task."
   
   Anthropology presented her with "an opportunity to do work that matters". Her vocation consolidated when she attended an academic meeting in Toronto in 1924. "Everyone there had a field of his own, each had a "people" to whom he referred in his discussions (...) I, too, wanted to have a "people" on whom I could base my own intellectual life". But she soon discovered that many tribal people already "belonged" to practicing anthropologists: "this was a period when each "field" was rather possessively claimed by the particular fieldworker who had done the research on the culture, a situation that was complementary to the scarcity of fieldworkers and the necessity of spreading them very thin".
   
   Franz Boas, then the don of anthropological studies in America, was in charge of allocating scarce human and financial resources to cover a vanishing number of primitive cultures. "He had to plan--much as if he were a general with only a handful of troops available to save a whole country--where to place each student most strategically, so that each piece of work would count and nothing would be wasted." Boas wanted Mead to work on adolescence among American Indians. She wanted to set sail to the Southern Seas. In the end, "Boas gave in. But he refused to let me go to the remote Tuamotu Islands; I must choose and island to which a ship came regularly--at least every three weeks. This was a restriction I could accept."
   
   "When I agreed to study the adolescent girl and Professor Boas consented to my doing this field work in Samoa, I had a half-hour instruction in which Professor Boas told me that I must be willing to seem to waste time just sitting about and listening but that I must not waste my time doing ethnography, that is, studying the culture as a whole. Fortunately, many people--missionaries, jurists, government officials, and old-fashioned ethnographers--had been to Samoa and so the temptation to "waste time" on ethnography would be less." He also told her to be careful of her health and to "stick to individuals and pattern". That was all the training in field methods that she received.
   
   She did not come unequipped to the field, however. "My training in psychology had given me ideas about the use of samples, tests, and systematic inventories of behavior." She was able to carry out her work on the life of the adolescent girl in nine months by observing subjects from various ages starting from pre-adolescence, thereby "inventing a cross-sectional method that can be used when one cannot stay many years in the field but wants to give a dynamic picture of how human beings develop." She experimented with various tests and data-gathering methods that she invented, using pictures from magazines or little colored squares.
   
   Later on, in other fields, she pioneered other innovative research methods: the collection of large samples like the 35,000 children's drawings she gathered in Papua New Guinea when she "found, contrary to all expectations, that these "primitive children" showed no trace of the easy animism of our own children, who draw the man in the moon and houses with faces", or her experimentation with sequence photography ("Whereas we had planned to take 2,000 photographs, we took 25,000) and film recording in Bali. She was also constantly willing to raise bold theoretical questions, and to present her findings in comprehensible terms.
   
   For a generation and more, Margaret Mead came to embody the anthropologist as hero, armed with the tools of social science to gather the lessons that people living in vastly different cultures had to teach us. Her maiden work, Coming of Age in Samoa, acquired best seller status almost by accident: having completed the manuscript, she added two chapters based on lectures she gave to a working girls' club. It was these concluding chapters, in which she drew broad lessons on the relevance of her observations to an American audience, that brought her fame and recognition.
   
   One of the reason why Mead's work came to be valued outside of anthropology was her appropriation by the feminist movement in the 1960s and the 1970s. Her description of other cultures structured along different patterns of relations helped American feminist theorists think about then-pressing questions of the universalism or cross-cultural variation of male dominance or gender subordination. Patriarchy, to use a shorthand. But Margaret Mead's life story shows that a traditional if somewhat slightly unconventional household could nurture a strong, independent woman intended on leading a life on her own terms, and also that her ambition to contribute to the accumulation of knowledge was compatible with her strong desire to experience motherhood and pass on her wisdom to her offsprings.
   
   Blackberry Winter is an autobiography written in a conventional mode, in which life and work are closely interwoven. Although it contains observations on fieldwork that will be of particular interest to anthropologists, it is destined to a general audience, and the chapters are rich in personal details and reflexions. As Mead writes in the Prologue, "I have spent most of my life studying the lives of other peoples, faraway peoples, so that Americans might better understand themselves (...) In much the same way, I bring my own life to throw what light it may on how children can be brought up so that parents and children, together, can weather the roughest seas."



2. This is a wonderful book to read for those interested in Mead's personality. I was surprised to read how innocent, delicate, loving, stubborn, and calculated this woman was. As she goes back through her life, she realizes how perfectly it all seemed to fit. She also seemed to realize, as she wrote this book, how much she always knew exactly what she wanted to do at each crossroad in her life. Margaret Mead tells us her story, from her perspective and it is a breath of fresh air.
   
   Yes, this book is a must for future anthropologists. She walks us through the many struggles in the field (I found her insights on language learning of great value) and sets the picture for an age where American anthropology was teeming with its most famous characters even today. Mead paints a unique picture of the personalities of Boaz, Benedict and her three husbands.
   
   Mead became something only the slightest fraction of us wannabe anthropologists could ever become. For those wanting fame and respect (come on admit it we all do at least a bit). There are few clues in this book to how Mead managed this. The book is nothing more than a beautiful account of being human. However, with her timing at a particular point in American history, her confidence and perhaps a splash of luck Mead became and remains an icon.



3. This book provides Mead's accounts of the people and events that most affected her thought and research. About half the book is devoted to her life before she began her career as an anthropologist. We meet her parents, Edward Mead and Emily Fogg Mead. Edward was an economics professor at the University of Pennsylvania. Emily divided her time between managing the household and pursuing her doctoral studies in the social sciences. Edward's mother, Martha Ramsay Mead, a former schoolteacher and principal, also lived with the family and was the primary director of their home schooling. Margaret describes her relationship with each of her parents and with her grandmother and siblings in turn. We learn how the family moved every season from one domicile to another, and how this shaped Margaret's concept of "home". Margaret also discusses how Edward related to his academic work and colleagues (such as when he organized a group to guarantee Scott Nearing's salary for a year after his dismissal). Margaret describes her schooling in detail, from the approach to learning that her grandmother and mother instilled with their home schooling efforts, to the various traditional schools that she attended and the social lessons she learned from them. She also discusses her college years and friends.
   
   The second part of the book describes Mead's adult and professional life. She explains her relationships with all three of her husbands, and how in the case of Reo Fortune and Gregory Bateson, they collaborated together in their fieldwork. She also relates how she came to work with Franz Boas, and how he directed her research early in her career. She tells us about how she came to know Ruth Benedict, and how she considered Benedict one of her closest colleagues and friends. The last part of the book, covering Margaret's experiences as a mother and grandmother, is not as detailed, but does provide some personal observations.
   
   For me, the most interesting aspects of this book were Mead's own interpretation of her motivations and accomplishments. She was a firm believer in both the value and necessity of studying cultures very different from her own. On the first page of the text, she tells us "I have spent most of my life studying the lives of other peoples, faraway peoples, so that Americans might better understand themselves." Later she notes, "to clear one's mind of presuppositions is a very hard thing to do and, without years of practice, all but impossible when one is working in one's own culture or in another that is very close to it." In summing up her work, she states, "I went to Samoa-as, later, I went to the other societies on which I have worked-to find out more about human beings, human beings like ourselves in everything except their culture. Through the accidents of history, these cultures had developed so differently from ours that knowledge of them could shed a kind of light upon us, upon our potentialities and our limitations, that was unique." Some anthropologists today have a different approach, believing that since one cannot understand a foreign culture completely, it is better to stick to observing one's own culture. There is still much validity, however, in Mead's point that you can't know what is natural or unnatural, innate or learned behaviors, unless you are aware of the wide range of possibilities exhibited by the myriad cultures of the world.



4. This book is a must read for a future Anthroplogists.
   It clearly brings together all her theories and it is a
   heartfelt view on a extremly successful and inspiring
   person in this field. I truly enjoyed her book and her
   views on culture and the future of Anthropology. I became a big
   fan of hers and will continue reading the rest of her books.
   If you are only slightly interested in Cultural Anthropolgy
   then I suggest you read her books. They are easy to read and
   very insightful about culture.
   It is worth every penny spend.



5. This autobiography is especially interesting for its insight into the professional life of a woman scholar in the 1920's and 1930's in a then new field of inquiry, although Mead did not encounter the extreme levels of resistance that make heroes and role models. Greek societies at her first college seem to have been far more repressive and damaging than were her graduate programs or employers. The professional rivalries are interesting. The book is especially strong in its depiction of Mead's parents, whose contrasting traits we can easily see influencing the daughter's ideas and character. Mead seems to be a keen observer of them, frank about their strengths and weaknesses, as dispassionate as she was in describing people in New Guinea. Mead is far less interested in or detailed about her three husbands. In fact, the autobiography seems oddly reticent, considering that its author was open minded, professionally interested in the sexual habits of other peoples, and unintimidated. She was able to ask Pacific Islanders what positions they preferred for intercourse, but unable in the autobiography to give a sense of the life of her marriages. We learn in detail what she packed for a trip, but only discover in passing that a divorce occurred. This book rewards readers more with cultural history than with a sense of the author's emotional life.

2 comments about With a Daughter's Eye: Memoir of Margaret Mead and Gregory Bateson, A.

1. Margaret Mead was one of my heroines when I was growing up. How fascinating to read this biography which is a blend of intellectual and up close and personal history of her. To have her husband, Gregory Bateson included is icing on the cake. Mary Catherine has done an extremely creditble job. For example, she writes, "Margaret always emphasized the importance of recording first impressions . . . for . . . the informed eye has its own blindness as it begins to take for granted things that were initially bizarre." As I read of Margaret's reaction to Mary Catherine's wedding -- that it must be a format that reflected Margaret and Gregory's place in the world, rather than just the personal joy and celebration of a daughter, I had to wonder if Mary Catherine ever connected the above passage to her own children. This daughter writes with a fairly clear eye about her parents. They are neither great untouchable icons, nor are they flawed little humans. I suspect she did a great deal of balancing in her own emotions to come up with the portraits she painted because, in truth, we have three portraits here, all interconnected and somehow, ongoing. Not a superficial book.



2. I enjoyed the careful description of two legendary lives observed by the author as a daughter and an anthropologist. As a piece of anthropological writing, a certain distance is maintained when the author tells of her memories of growing up with her parents and the relationship between them. Yet, I can still detect her sadness and love in the seemingly unemotional and impersonal writing style. Often, significant feelings are embedded in the scientific explaination of her parents' theories and ideas. I not only gained a better understanding of the field of anthropology, but also find the "differences" (such as different kinds of families, marriages, choices, ideas, personalities) that we encounter in life as descriped by the author enriching.

2 comments about Darkwater: Voices from Within the Veil (Dover Thrift Editions).

1. This book addresses global issues, immigration policy, womens rights, civil rights, and the nature of European colonizaton of Africa. Du Bois connects the dots that tie the East St. Louis riots, the brutal treatment of african labor by european colonists, the low wages of domestic african american workers and women in america, and the shortage of european migration/workers because of the "great war". This is a first hand account of history by an African American that differs from past accounts of the above mentioned events in history texts, the movies, and the majority press.
   Darkwater is an easy read that educates. This is history not written as history by the author but as a comment on the events of his time that have significance to what is occuring in the world today.
   I found the book very enjoyable and enlightening. I witheld one star from the rating because the poetry, although good, seemed be tossed in as a filler.



2. Fondly called W.E.B., Dr William Edward Burghardt DuBois was a conscientious voice, whose mouthpiece was just a pen. Each of his writings buttressed this point.
   A bundle of intellect, all his works have remained potent till this day. Having enumerated the problems and experiences of emancipated slaves in "The Souls of Black Folk", Dr DuBois used this book, "Darkwater: Voices from Within the Veil", to highlight the intricacies of the then White-Black relationships. This book has a socio-economic focus, and dealt with such associational issues like exploitative labour, voting rights, women's rights, and family values. It suggested guidance and remedies wherever necessary. The ideas and insights of Dr DuBois were general in perspective: both Whites and Blacks were thought of.
   This book is more than eighty years old; however, anybody who reads it, needs only to turn a few pages before discovering that we are still grappling with most of its lamentations.
   Finally, I must say that I cherished reading this book. "Darkwater: Voices from Within the Veil" is a compelling piece; especially for anyone who is familiar with either "The Souls of Black Folk" or "Dusk of Dawn".