Bock, P.K. (Ed.).
(1994). Handbook of Psychological
Anthropology. Westport: Greenwood Press.
Bock’s Handbook of Cultural Anthropology
presents an overview of the discipline as it has existed since the 1930’s, and
also provides information on the trends and new discoveries being made in the
field at the time of the book’s publication (Bock 1994, pg. vii). Consequently,
the scope of this work is broad. A history and critique of the discipline is
provided that will help the reader understand both the origins of psychological
anthropology, and how the study has changed over the sixty years between its
conception and the Handbook’s
publication. Furthermore, in the second part of the book, information is
presented on the cutting edge of psychological anthropology, and articles
describe studies being done in fields from dream research to child development.
In spite of its
broad scope, this work is intended for a fairly narrow audience. The language
and topics presented are written for an individual who is already familiar with
the major areas of study and terminology in psychological anthropology. It
would be difficult for a layman to pick up the work and really grasp what each
of the contributing authors describe in their respective articles. In spite of
that, it is still possible to glean some information from the work with just a
little bit of background in the field. Therefore this work should be
recommended primarily to those who are studying psychological anthropology,
although it could serve as a helpful source even for an individual who has not
been initiated in the field. It would just need to be paired with an
introduction to the discipline so that the lay reader could better grasp what
the authors write.
The timeliness of
this work leaves some to be desired. On the one hand, the examination of the history
of psychological anthropology from the mid to late twentieth century would
still be of use to a reader interested in researching how the discipline has
changed and grown since its conception. On the other hand, this work has become
an historical artifact in itself. The information it presents is over twenty
years old, and is therefore outdated. Even the critique that it has to offer on
historical methods and theories could be outdated as well. Moreover, the
current research presented in Part II of this work is now all dated; new studies
have almost certainly been done that replace everything presented here. Thus,
the timeliness of this work is less than desirable, unless the reader is
seeking historical perspectives.
The authority of
the Handbook makes up for its age. The
editor, Philip K. Bock, was a professor of Anthropology at the University of
New Mexico with decades of experience in both fieldwork and academic research.
He is widely published and the editor of the Journal of Anthropological Research (Bock 1994, pg. 402). As a
result, Bock is well qualified to oversee the assembly and publication of this Handbook. Not only is he well-versed in
the specific discipline of psychological anthropology, he is also experienced
with other sub-disciplines of anthropology, and would thus be able to choose
contributions that amply reflect the then-current state of psychological
anthropology, but that also would contribute to the broader field of
anthropology as a whole. The contributing authors for this work are also well
respected, well-published anthropologists from a wide variety of well-known institutions.
In addition to
being very authoritative, this work is also exceedingly well documented. Each
of the contributing authors presents an extensive bibliography for their
articles. Also, the editor provides a select bibliography at the end of the Handbook that provides even more
resources. Thus, this work is extremely well documented with good resources,
and this gives even more weight to its authority in the field.
Finally, this work
contains articles on a broad spectrum of topics dealing with issues in a
variety of cultures. There is no real bias that I could discern in examining
the text, although I admit that I am not well versed enough in psychological
anthropology to definitively say that this work provides an accurate overview
of the discipline. If there is a bias, it would be towards certain theories and
academic pursuits, and not towards any individual or group of individuals. So,
this book appears to be reasonably free of bias.
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