More than two-thirds of this rehabilitative work is a fascinating, accessible study of a little-known people.
A cultural anthropologist defends his deeply engaged lifetime of work with the Amazon Indians.
Chagnon first arrived among the Yanomamö in the Amazon basin on the border of Venezuela and Brazil in 1964 as a graduate student at the University of Michigan, and his initial fieldwork yielded a seminal textbook on the tribe. Living among these isolated people, the author gained their trust; learned their language, customs and reproductive patterns; and patiently constructed their genealogies, history of wars, way of life and “village fissions.” He found right away that the Yanomamö were undergoing a significant transformation from a primitive societal system to a more complex, larger and political system. Chagnon draws from the work of theoretical biology to propound the importance of “kinship behaviors” among the Yanomamö, who were constantly stressed by the threat of attack from hostile tribes and practiced this form of reproductive selection in order to survive. Indeed, having closely observed these people, the author concludes that “maximizing political and personal security was the overwhelming driving force in human, social and cultural evolution.” Many of Chagnon’s observations—e.g., that the Yanomamö fought over women—did not jibe with the then–politically correct notions of native peoples, and his research was censured at home. Moreover, Chagnon’s work in the field coincided with enormous changes in the field of anthropology, such as the challenge by E.O. Wilson’s studies in “sociobiology,” which Chagnon embraced. His subsequent research ran afoul of various academic and political authorities and native rights groups, and the author was even accused of starting a lethal measles epidemic among the Yanomamö. In the last section of the book, the author tediously rebuts the “smear campaigns.”
More than two-thirds of this rehabilitative work is a fascinating, accessible study of a little-known people.Pub Date: Feb. 5, 2013
ISBN: 978-0-684-85510-3
Page Count: 544
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: Oct. 6, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2012
The author's youthfulness helps to assure the inevitable comparison with the Anne Frank diary although over and above the...
Elie Wiesel spent his early years in a small Transylvanian town as one of four children.
He was the only one of the family to survive what Francois Maurois, in his introduction, calls the "human holocaust" of the persecution of the Jews, which began with the restrictions, the singularization of the yellow star, the enclosure within the ghetto, and went on to the mass deportations to the ovens of Auschwitz and Buchenwald. There are unforgettable and horrifying scenes here in this spare and sombre memoir of this experience of the hanging of a child, of his first farewell with his father who leaves him an inheritance of a knife and a spoon, and of his last goodbye at Buchenwald his father's corpse is already cold let alone the long months of survival under unconscionable conditions.
Pub Date: Jan. 16, 2006
ISBN: 0374500010
Page Count: 120
Publisher: Hill & Wang
Review Posted Online: Oct. 7, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2006
Well-told and admonitory.
Young-rags-to-mature-riches memoir by broker and motivational speaker Gardner.
Born and raised in the Milwaukee ghetto, the author pulled himself up from considerable disadvantage. He was fatherless, and his adored mother wasn’t always around; once, as a child, he spied her at a family funeral accompanied by a prison guard. When beautiful, evanescent Moms was there, Chris also had to deal with Freddie “I ain’t your goddamn daddy!” Triplett, one of the meanest stepfathers in recent literature. Chris did “the dozens” with the homies, boosted a bit and in the course of youthful adventure was raped. His heroes were Miles Davis, James Brown and Muhammad Ali. Meanwhile, at the behest of Moms, he developed a fondness for reading. He joined the Navy and became a medic (preparing badass Marines for proctology), and a proficient lab technician. Moving up in San Francisco, married and then divorced, he sold medical supplies. He was recruited as a trainee at Dean Witter just around the time he became a homeless single father. All his belongings in a shopping cart, Gardner sometimes slept with his young son at the office (apparently undiscovered by the night cleaning crew). The two also frequently bedded down in a public restroom. After Gardner’s talents were finally appreciated by the firm of Bear Stearns, his American Dream became real. He got the cool duds, hot car and fine ladies so coveted from afar back in the day. He even had a meeting with Nelson Mandela. Through it all, he remained a prideful parent. His own no-daddy blues are gone now.
Well-told and admonitory.Pub Date: June 1, 2006
ISBN: 0-06-074486-3
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Amistad/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2006
© Copyright 2024 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
