Description
Just a few years before the dawn of the digital age, Harvard psychologist Bert Kaplan set out to build the largest database of sociological information ever assembled. It was the mid-1950s, and social scientists were entranced by the human insights promised by Rorschach tests and other innovative scientific protocols. Kaplan, along with anthropologist A. I. Hallowell and a team of researchers, sought out a varied range of non-European subjects among remote and largely non-literate peoples around the globe. Recording their dreams, stories, and innermost thoughts in a vast database, Kaplan envisioned future researchers accessing the data through the cutting-edge Readex machine. Almost immediately, however, technological developments and the obsolescence of the theoretical framework rendered the project irrelevant, and eventually it was forgotten.
Product Details
| Publisher | Yale University Press |
| Publish Date | November 24, 2015 |
| Pages | 368 |
| Language | English |
| Type |  Hardback |
| EAN/UPC | 9780300209525 |
| Dimensions | 9.3 X 6.1 X 1.0 inches | 1.6 pounds |
About the Author
Reviews
"Humane, hilarious, and smart . . . The book shows that, although some things are forgotten because they are unimportant, others lose importance because they are forgotten."--Science-- "Science"
"Lemov, a professor of the History of Science at Harvard, recollects with flair, affection and dazzling detail, a post World War II project to do away with mornings after like this one: those episodes of mourning that follow some lost telling of some last secret of some human heart. . . . Riveting."--New Republic-- "New Republic"
"Lemov's contribution informs our understanding not only of how psychological research is managed but also of our own daily contributions, voluntary and otherwise, to a 'forever' database already being probed in increasingly intimate fashion."--Psychology Today-- "Psychology Today"
"Unique, well-curated brain food for readers intrigued with the human psyche and how it can be recorded, indexed, and cross-referenced."--Kirkus Reviews-- "Kirkus Reviews"
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