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This lucidly conceived work is certainly an outstanding contribution to the methodology of the social sciences. The central theme, ingenious in its simplicity, is the measurement of the adequacy of life history techniques by means of highly specific criteria. Of necessity such criteria must be arbitrary in nature, but this is true only in the best sense of the word. The criteria listed were 'developed initially from direct experience in the life history field, deriving as it does from both cultural and psychological sources… The standards suggested are an attempt to formulate where we are at the present time in our ability to judge the adequacy and scientific usefulness of documents in the life history field.' The orientation of the author is immediately apparent, moreover, when he says, 'Personality problems are always culture-personality problems'.
The criteria themselves are seven in number. Typical life histories representative of schools of psychiatry and sociology, and in addition, one literary venture (H. G. Wells' Experiment in Autobiography) are examined meticulously, and often brilliantly, to determine to what extent they adhere to these empirical standards. It would be illuminating to list the criteria to see what tightly knit demands the author makes upon the formulation of a life history technique. Quoting Dollard:
1The subject must be viewed as a specimen in a cultural series.
2The organic motors of action ascribed must be socially relevant.
3The peculiar rôle of the family group in transmitting the culture must be recognized.
4The specific method of elaboration of organic materials into social behavior must be shown.
5The continuous related character of experience from childhood through adulthood must be stressed.