New Zealand anthropologist Derek Freeman ignited a ferocious controversy in 1983 when he denounced the research of Margaret Mead, a world-famous public intellectual who had died five years earlier. Freeman's claims caught the attention of popular media, converging with other vigorous cultural debates of the era. Many anthropologists, however, saw Freeman's strident refutation of Mead's best-selling Coming of Age in Samoa as the culmination of a forty-year vendetta. Others defended Freeman's critique, if not always his tone. Truth's Fool documents an intellectual journey that was much larger and more encompassing than Freeman's criticism of Mead's work. It peels back the prickly layers to reveal the man in all his complexity. Framing this story within anthropology's development in Britain and America, Peter Hempenstall recounts Freeman's mission to turn the discipline from its cultural-determinist leanings toward a view of human culture underpinned by biological and behavioral drivers. Truth's Fool engages the intellectual questions at the center of the Mead-Freeman debate and illuminates the dark spaces of personal, professional, and even national rivalries.
My first reaction to Lantz's work was genuine intrigue. That's a great thing to find in the first few pages of any book, but a rare find in most poetry these days. Nick Lantz is alive in his work which is more than can be said about many modern poets. I was shocked with how quickly I finished the book, not simply because it is only 66 pages but because the book has a functional flow. It is effectively broken into sections that are somewhat telling of the poems found behind their subheadings, but mainly serves to more closely align poems of similar content. This technique added a great dimension to the book giving it an almost short novel feel. Overall I would rate this as a very well structured but not overly imposing collection of modern poetry. This is one of those uncommon books of poetry that is worth reading over several times, and thinking about several more.
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