The author applies French sociology and ethnology to the idea of the persona. He quotes anthropologists, theologians, and philosophers, gives a nod to psychologists and neurologists, but omits entirely any mention of psychoanalysts. There is an informative section on the development of the idea of the persona under the Romans. Persona is related to cognomen and imago. Slaves, however, had no persona, no body, no name, no cognomen, and no goods of their own. The author asserts that Christianity changed all this without explaining how. There is a description of the evolution of the persona from the man defined by his status to the concept of man as a human person.