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William James: In the Maelstrom of American Modernism By Robert D. Richardson ( Mariner Books )
Release Date: 2007-09-14
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Product Description
Pivotal member of the Metaphysical Club, author of The Varieties of Religious Experience, older brother of extraordinary siblings Henry and Alice, the remarkable William James put an indelible stamp on psychology, philosophy, teaching, and religion -- on modernism itself. In this thought-provoking and moving biography, James emerges as an immensely complex and fascinating man. Through passionate scholarship, Robert D. Richardson illuminates James's life and hugely influential works: the Varieties, Principles of Psychology, Talks to Teachers, and Pragmatism. At last, in this definitive work William James is given his due as a man whose influence resonates in innumerable areas of modern life.
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William James back from the dead! ( taylor_express )
As a graduate student of counseling psychology, I read on average 300 pages a week for school. But after my reading for school is done, only one book can keep my attention, and that's Richardson's biography on James.
If you want to see American psychology at its roots, there's no one else to start with than James. He's the most colorful, most quoted and most brilliant early psychologist in America and yet one of the least known and most under-rated.
This 500-page breathtaking tour de force of James sets the standard for the life of William James. For me, Richardson brought James back to life for as long as this book continues to be in print!
I highly recommend this book to anyone interested in the history of psychology, especially the history of psychology in America. Also recommended to anyone who enjoys reading about the lives of great men and women of the past.
James isn't just for academics. He was a staunch advocate for psychology as a practical field to help us live richer and fuller lives. He didn't just study psychology (and medicine, and philosophy) - he lived psychology at a time when the field was only being born.
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Don't Read This In Public.
Richardson's biographies of Thoreau and Emerson are two of the best books I've encountered in my life of voracious reading and this is one is just as wondrous. I cannot read any of these books in public, because they all make me want to weep and clutch my chest and shout, "At last! Everything has been revealed!"
I wish I could explain why Richardson's biographies are different from anyone else's. It's not just an artful piling up of delightful and distressing facts. Instead it's like the doorbell rings and you have a new best friend: William James. There's something magical and occult about this. It's not like he went to the research library, it's like he drew mystic diagrams on the floor.
Richardson writes that one of James' gifts was "his uncanny ability to pick up redemptive ideas from his reading." And it is Richardson's gift too, to fill each page with life-giving ideas. These biographies are as purely inspirational as a strong Lao coffee with sweetened condensed milk. Reading them makes me prone to fits of euphoria.
Richardson points toward the sources of James' genius-- one of the most important of which was James' own depression and heartbreak. He writes, "James had a remarkable capacity to convert misery and unhappiness into intellectual and emotional openness and growth. It is almost as though trouble was for him a precondition for insight." How hopeful that is!
Richardson's compassion for his subject spills out, somehow, to the reader, and makes one feel that one's own nonsense and bleakness do not render one disqualified for a whole human life. What more can I ask for?
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A biography as close to a page turner as possible ( janlelie )
More than an interesting read, not only into the life of one of the gotfathers of psychology and pragmatism, but of the period. Well written.
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A very intellectual read
I would suggest reading this book first before reading some of William James other books. This book gives you an overview and thought process to give the reader a context for understanding all of his work. I am 35 years old and know of no one in my age that reads William James but I just wish this book came out years ago before I read all of his work.
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For A Popular Audience, Too ( rctnyc )
I need not repeat the summaries set forth below by other reviewers, since these explain both Richardson's method -- to tell the life story through the work -- and the essentials of James' theories. What I will say is that, even if you have no background in philosophy or psychology, you should read this brilliant, passionate biography. James wrote for a popular as well as a professional audience; he was open and curious to all experience, and wished to be inclusive rather than exclusive in disseminating his ideas. Richardson is clear and succinct in explaining James theories -- often in the man's own, crisp, evocative language and clarifying analogies. Moreover, the concepts that James developed have in many cases become part of our popular vocabulary, including through organizations such as Alcoholics Anonymous, which Richardson reports took inspiration from James' Gifford lectures, published in the U.S. as "The Varieties of Religious Experience."
I had not read James for many years but, since reading this biography, have purchased a collection of his writings and am re-reading many of his works. You will come away from "In the Maelstrom of American Modernism" with a better understanding of both American values and ideals, and the history of U.S. higher education. Most importantly, however, you will come away with enormous admiration for the radiant personality that was William James, or as Richardson exclaims (using italics, not caps) at the end of this great work, for "the SPIRIT the man." When I finished reading, I not only wanted to read William James; I was sorry that I had not known him or had him as a teacher. That's how good this book is -- for every reader.
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