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Weston LaBarre identifies himself as a psychoanalytically oriented anthropologist. Like Margaret Mead, he is a prominent figure from the old "culture and personality" school of thought and a noted popularizer of anthropological ideas. At the same time, with psychiatric as well as anthropological training, he is widely regarded by anthropologists as a principal exponent of a psychoanalytic approach in anthropology—so much so that he contributed the article on psychoanalytic theory of personality to a major survey of psychological theories (Norbeck et al., 1968). It behooves psychoanalysts, then, to be aware of where LaBarre stands, and how he represents their science to other fields and to a popular audience.
This book, however, is not the best place to go for an intensive acquaintance with LaBarre's ideas and approach. For that, one needs to turn to The Human Animal(1954), his survey of human nature and its evolution, or to The Ghost Dance(1970), his iconoclastic review of human religions and their origin (LaBarre is not modest in the scope of his topics). The present book offers a potpourri of the various themes on which LaBarre has written. All the papers have appeared elsewhere in some form, and only one or two are significant papers in their own right. Most are extensions of, or tropes on, larger works (such as the two just mentioned).
LaBarre writes fluently and with ease. His expressive, whimsical style is often charming, although it often leads him into overstatements and hasty generalizations that are not well-thought-out. His sweeping statements, along with some sloppy editing (several sentences, and even parts of paragraphs, are repeated verbatim in different chapters), are sometimes irritating.
The 16 papers in this volume are highly disparate in style, subject matter, approach, and intent. A provocative introductory essay reviews and defends LaBarre's own prolific work and attacks quantification in human studies. Six more are primarily surveys of