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Reviews (5)
Publisher's Weekly Review
Anthropologist Hall ( The Dance of Life ) turns his analytic eye on the first 50 years of his life, beginning in 1914, and measures the impact of his particular cultural experiences on the person he became. Abandoned as a child by cold, self-absorbed parents, he coped by going on to forge a brilliant career studying other cultures through examination of the details of everyday behavior and the many forms of non-verbal communication. His experiences living with the Hopi and the Navaho, World War II service as a white officer in a black regiment and a career in the State Department brought him success but little self-knowledge. In the 1950s, prompted by feelings of extreme distress, Hall began psychoanalysis and was able to resolve his blocked childhood emotions. An instructive look into a notable life. Author tour. (Mar.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Kirkus Review
Of his life, anthropologist Hall (coauthor, Hidden Differences, 1987; The Dance of Life, 1982, etc.) says here, ``In the perspective of the years I can see that mine has been an unusual life--in fact, a remarkable one, endowed with luminosity.'' Hall, born in 1914, focuses in these appealing memoirs on his childhood through early midlife, tracing a personal evolution of ideas and ``self.'' He recalls many details of a past that ranges from his too-few years with his parents as the eldest of a brood of siblings, to his growing up among strangers at boarding schools in New Mexico, to time spent living with American Indians, serving in the US Army, and working in academia (Univ. of Denver and Bennington, where his ``best friend'' was Erich Fromm) and the federal government. His reminiscences wander a bit, and it's sometimes unclear why he's relating a particular anecdote--but, in a way, Hall's narrative mirrors the random quality of ``everyday life'' and the unexpected ways in which an inquisitive mind stumbles on insight, learns, and grows. Of particular interest are the glimpses he provides into the formation of a cultural anthropologist, and how he developed his pathbreaking ideas on nonverbal communication. The title pays homage to Freud--and, finally, Hall concludes that the ``anthropology of everyday life'' is akin to the therapeutic process: that, upon examination, our daily lives reveal ``the vast world of unconscious culture in its relation to the unconscious self.'' An engaging, even charming, intellectual biography.
Booklist Review
Anthropologists often come to their calling through a romantic desire to experience remote and exotic cultures. For Hall, it was different. He got his start while doing an independent study in college of Anasazi indented pottery. Seeking to learn all he could about his pots, he measured everything, discovering differences from one archaeological site to another in how potters pinched their coils to weld them together and eventually finding the pinching styles reliable guides to cultural affiliation. Mies van der Rohe's dictum that "God is in the details" is apparently true for household pottery, since through his careful analysis of how potters unconsciously finger their work, Hall began to discover the hidden building blocks of culture. Studying things most people wouldn't notice--the silent rules of everyday life--became Hall's signature as an anthropologist. He traces the personal development of his ideas from childhood through early mid-life. In high school, he learned about impressionist painting and never failed in later life, when up against insoluble problems, such as how space works in the ecology of interaction on the street, to turn to artists for insight. Anyone concerned with the history of the behavioral sciences and with cultural anthropology in particular, as well as anyone looking for a story of a life endowed with luminosity, will be interested in Hall's recounting of how he came to pierce the mask of culture to expose the workings underneath. ~--Philip Herbst
Choice Review
A journey through time and space by world-renowned anthropologist Hall. Noted for his explorations of nonverbal communication in The Silent Language (1959), The Hidden Dimension (1966), and Beyond Culture (CH, Sep'76), Hall in this autobiography supplies the personal and historical foundations out of which his insights grew. A product of a broken marriage and estranged from both parents, Hall spent his formative years in boys' schools in the Southwest. He faced his first direct experience with the difficulties of cross-cultural communication when he worked as the crew chief on Hopi and Navajo dam- and road-building crews during the Depression. Then followed a PhD from Columbia, a stint in the Army, research on the Micronesian island of Truk, years of teaching at the University of Denver and Bennington College, and frustrating years working for the State Department, training foreign service officers. Interwoven throughout his descriptions of these diverse experiences with different cultures and different federal agencies are his inspirations that provided the grounding for an anthropology of everyday life. A very readable, insightful book by one of the best known and certainly most experienced practical anthropologists. All levels of readers. K. M. Weist; University of Montana
Library Journal Review
In this autobiography of one of the most influential anthropologists of the last 30 years, Hall writes with the clarity and easygoing grace that have made his books popular with readers who eschew the jargon and statistics that clutter some social science books. Hall recounts many of the unusual events that shaped his outlook, from living in the Santa Fe artists' colony to working on Indian reservations in Arizona and serving with a black army regiment in World War II. A theme that reappears throughout the book is Hall's sincere efforts toward understanding other cultures systematically thwarted by an unsympathetic bureaucracy. Hall only succeeds in breaking through the bureaucratic barrier after he overcomes his own personal barriers during seven years of psychoanalysis. While quite engaging, this book may not be as useful to students and professionals as Hall's other works that help to explore our understanding of intercultural communication. For larger academic and public library collections.-- Eric Hinsdale, Simmons Coll. Graduate Sch. of Management Lib., Boston (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.