Get Uncovering Lives: The Uneasy Alliance of Biography and PDF

By Alan C. Elms

ISBN-10: 0195113799

ISBN-13: 9780195113792

Psychobiography is usually attacked by way of critics who suppose that it trivializes complicated grownup personalities, "explaining the massive deeds of serious individuals," as George Will wrote, "by a few mild the person suffered at a young age--say, 7, whilst his mom took away a lollipop." Worse but, a few writers have truly abused psychobiography--for example, to grind axes from the suitable (Nancy Clinch at the Kennedy relations) or from the left (Fawn Brodie on Richard Nixon)--and others have provided woefully inept diagnoses (such as Albert Goldman's portrait of Elvis Presley as a "split character" and a "delusional paranoid"). And but, as Alan Elms argues in Uncovering Lives, within the arms of a talented practitioner, psychobiography can rival the superior conventional biography within the insights it bargains. Elms makes a robust case for the worth of psychobiography, arguing largely from instance. certainly, many of the ebook gains Elms's personal attention-grabbing case experiences of over a dozen well-known figures, between them Sigmund Freud (the father of psychobiography), B.F. Skinner, Isaac Asimov, L. Frank Baum, Vladimir Nabokov, Jimmy Carter, George Bush, Saddam Hussein, and Henry Kissinger. those profiles make fascinating examining. for instance, Elms discusses the fiction of Isaac Asimov in gentle of the latter's acrophobia (fear of heights) and delicate agoraphobia (fear of open spaces)--and Elms contains excerpts from a chain of letters among himself and Asimov. He finds an accidental subtext of The Wizard of Oz--that men are susceptible, adult females are robust (think of Scarecrow, Tin guy, the Lion, and the Wizard, as opposed to the nice and undesirable witches and Dorothy herself)--and strains this partially to Baum's formative years center ailment, which saved him from strenuous task, and to his courting together with his partner's mother, Matilda Joslyn Gage, a uncommon recommend of women's rights. And in a desirable bankruptcy, he examines the abused youth of Saddam Hussein, the privileged formative years of George Bush, and the appreciably varied mental paths that led those males into the Persian Gulf struggle. Elms helps every one learn with huge examine, a lot of it by no means offered before--for example, on how essentially the most revealing parts of C.G. Jung's autobiography have been deleted even with his protests ahead of book. alongside the best way, Elms offers a lot perception into how psychobiography is written. eventually, he proposes transparent guidance for judging prime quality paintings, and gives sensible assistance for someone attracted to writing during this style. Written with nice readability and wit, Uncovering Lives illuminates the contributions that psychology could make to biography. Elms's enthusiasm for his topic is contagious and may encourage would-be psychobiographers in addition to win over the main hardened skeptics.