Uncovering Lives: The Uneasy Alliance of Biography and Psychology

by Alan C. Elms

Book Overview

Psychobiography is often attacked by critics who feel that it trivializes complex adult personalities, "explaining the large deeds of great individuals," as George Will wrote, "by some slight the individual suffered at a tender age--say, 7, when his mother took away a lollipop." Worse yet, some writers have clearly abused psychobiography--for instance, to grind axes from the right (Nancy Clinch on the Kennedy family) or from the left (Fawn Brodie...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0195113799
• ISBN13: 9780195113792
• Release Date: May 1997
• Publisher: Oxford University Press
• Length: 328 Pages
• Weight: 1.15 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.0" x 5.8" x 9.0"

Customer Reviews

If you like Psychobiography...

Psychobiography is a sometimes suspect practice heavily rooted in Freudian psychology. This, initally, may deter some from embracing psychobiography as a valid form of biography, let alone a pshychological analysis. Yet, Alan Elms manages to not only allay some of the hesitations and frustrations surrounding psychobiography, he also convinces us of some valied points of development of many, and varied, individuals. From Issac Assimov to Leonardo DaVinci to President Bush, Elms manages to allure us into accepting psychobiography with both his solid research basis and his witty style. His analysis of Freud, and especially of Freud's violations of his own proscriptions for psychobiography, is particularly illuminating and, in many regards, comical. Elms avoids drowning in theory, but manages to apply enough at apropos moments that we are secure in the knowledge that this is, indeed, and psychologically based approach. All around a good book for those interested in psychobiography.