Alfred C. Kinsey : A Public/Private Life [Hardcover]

James H. Jones (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: October 17, 1997

The hidden life of Alfred C. Kinsey, the principal architect of the sexual revolution.

In this brilliant, groundbreaking biography, twenty years in the making, James H. Jones presents a moving and even shocking portrait of the man who pierced the veil of reticence surrounding human sexuality. Jones shows that the public image Alfred Kinsey cultivated of disinterested biologist was in fact a carefully crafted public persona. By any measure he was an extraordinary man—and a man with secrets.

Drawing upon never before disclosed facts about Kinsey's childhood, Jones traces the roots of Kinsey's scholarly interest in human sexuality to his tortured upbringing. Between the sexual tensions of the culture and Kinsey's devoutly religious family, Jones depicts Kinsey emerging from childhood with psychological trauma but determined to rescue humanity from the emotional and sexual repression he had suffered. New facts about his marriage, family life, and relationships with students and colleagues enrich this portrait of the complicated, troubled man who transformed the state of public discourse on human sexuality. 30 black-and-white photographs

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

This astonishing biography of Alfred Kinsey, the man who launched the sexual revolution, is graphically frank about his decidedly out-of-the-mainstream sexual practices (including masochism and voyeurism), yet historian James Jones doesn't exploit the material for titillation. Instead, Jones argues compassionately and persuasively that Kinsey's personal sexual demons sparked his campaign to demolish Victorian taboos about sex by gathering the scientific data eventually published in Sexual Behavior in the Human Male (1948) and Sexual Behavior in the Human Female (1953). Jones reveals that the data were hardly as unbiased as Kinsey claimed, but it was world-shaking nonetheless. Alfred C. Kinsey: A Public/Private Life is a magnificent work of cultural history as well as a sensitive study of a troubled individual.

From Library Journal

Nearly 50 years after the publication of Kinsey's landmark studies on human sexual behavior, this scholarly biography honors "the high priest of sexual liberation." History professor Jones (Bad Blood, LJ 4/1/81) heralds Alfred Charles Kinsey as "among the most influential Americans of the twentieth century." Jones persuasively interprets Kinsey's life as an unrelenting struggle to use science to free himself from his own religious upbringing and the sexual guilt he knew as a boy. Jones reveals how Kinsey was a covert revolutionary who used science to lay siege to middle-class morality. Overall, Jones paints a brilliant picture of a controversial, dedicated scientist whose taxonomic research with insects eventually opened the Pandora's box that few realized was housed at the Institute for Human Sex Research in Bloomington, Indiana. Jones has some "shocking" revelations (Kinsey's "hidden agenda" and his homosexuality), but this fascinating biography provides insights into recent cultural history and a tormented man who exposed the prevailing norms of sexual conduct as national hypocrisy. Highly recommended.
-?James Swanton, Harlem Hosp. Lib., New York
Copyright 1997 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 938 pages
• Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company; 1st edition (October 17, 1997)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0393040860
• ISBN-13: 978-0393040869
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 6.6 x 2.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 3.4 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 2.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,024,819 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

20 of 22 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars An excellent insight into a complex personality, November 29, 1997

By A Customer

This review is from: Alfred C. Kinsey : A Public/Private Life (Hardcover)

I bought this book on the strength of Richard Rhodes' review in the New York Times. Clearly, Kinsey was one of the key figures in biology and psychology during our century. Jones' book is a clearly written and well-documented journey through the whole of Kinsey's life, and provides a unique insight into the boy who was father to the man.

However, I found Jones' book slow going at first. The amount of material in the text seemed to be proportional to the research materials available, and not to its importance. The section detailing Kinsey's college years was particularly difficult for me.

My interest, and the pace of the book, picked up rapidly once Kinsey arrived at Indiana University. I agree with Rhodes that the book improves as it moves along. Jones states his basic premises about Kinsey's life right up front, and upon first being confronted with his descriptions of Kinsey's sadomasochistic and voyeuristic sexual practices my first reaction was, "Aww, c'mon". However, by the end of the book, his interpretations were so well-argued and well-documented that I had no choice but to agree with Jones' conclusions about Kinsey the man as well as Kinsey the researcher.

The most fascinating aspect of the book was Jones' insight into the culture of science in pre-World War II America. He never allows this to dominate the text, but it is an important subtext throughout.

Overall, this is the best book I've read on the history of science since Rhodes' The Making of the Atomic Bomb. In my opinion, Kinsey was to human psychology what Oppenheimer was to physics: a man, deeply-flawed as all of us are, thrust by history into unusual circumstances who ultimately changes the world around him.

14 of 16 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars highly readable biography of a complex individual, April 10, 1998

By 

Blaine Greenfield "eclectic reader" (Belle Meade, NJ) - See all my reviews
(TOP 1000 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Alfred C. Kinsey : A Public/Private Life (Hardcover)

i had not known too much about kinsey until i read this book . . . now i know perhaps even more than i watnted to know (the book is nearly 1,000 pages). . . however, it was never dull . . . and would be of interest to readers interested in books about higher education, the mdeia, public rleations, statistics, politics, and yes, sex also! . . . i recommend the book!

22 of 39 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Thorough, biassed and both scientifically and sexually naive, May 19, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Alfred C. Kinsey : A Public/Private Life (Hardcover)

James Jones's biography of Alfred c Kinsey is a valuable antidote to the hagiographies and demonologies published so far. Jones presents the nastier sides of his subject's personality and exposes his strategically concealed sexual practices. However, Jones presents Kinsey as a pervert and charlatan, failing to understand the moral and scientific rationales for Kinsey's approach to sex research and thus totally misrepresents both the man and his achievement. Jones's last-page sop to Kinsey's greatness seems to be a cowardly after-thought to a bilious, splenetic and angry book.