This book of essays is divided into sections on empirical studies of cognitive style, methods of teaching and therapy, psychonalysis and religion, with the longest section on the social character of Mexicans and North Americans. The essays are reprints from journals, copies of presented papers, and original papers in English or Spanish, or both.
The scope of the essays is exciting. They cover alcoholism, games, peasant modes of thought, and concepts of love emanating from studies undertaken with Erich Fromm in a Mexican village. These essays show the use of psychoanalytic theory and psychological instrumentation in interpreting individual personality, and the anthropological perspective in describing national character. The essays on cognitive style expand the cognitive developmental literature, utilizing cross-national and rural-urban comparisons. The perspectives on teaching and religion illustrate a blend of classical psychoanalytic theory and radical, or modern, sociological thought à la Ivan Illich.
The author, Michael Maccoby, presents to us in this book a tour de force of multidisciplinary study and theorizing in social science.
