Romantic Passion [Paperback]

William R. Jankowiak (Editor)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0231096879 | ISBN-13: 978-0231096874 | Publication Date: April 15, 1995

Observers from the West, the book contends, have incorrectly projected rigid ethnocentric notions of love and marriage onto cultures around the world. Contributors look beyond each society's "official" institutions to explore expressions of love. They find, for instance, that arranged marriages and polygamy do not necessarily indicate a lack of romantic passion but rather that people in such cultures may expect to look elsewhere for love. Contributors also look at the other side of the equation: rejection and grief.

Editorial Reviews

Review

What these often wonderfully evocative field reports demonstrate is that, while the capacity for some kind of passionate attraction to another may very well be a human universal, that capacity is shaped and molded into a myriad of forms by different cultures. A very valuable and timely contribution. Highly recommended.

(Choice )

About the Author

William Jankowiak is associate professor of anthropology at the University of Nevada at Las Vegas.

Product Details

• Paperback: 310 pages
• Publisher: Columbia University Press (April 15, 1995)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0231096879
• ISBN-13: 978-0231096874
• Product Dimensions: 8.9 x 6.1 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 14.4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,260,787 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Excellent food for thought (maybe chocolate?), November 26, 2000

By 

Paul Shen-Brown (Arcadia, CA United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Romantic Passion (Paperback)

Many people would never even think of trying to understand romantic love from a scientific perspective, much less a cross-cultural one. This is one that makes you think about something we take for granted, which is a mark of a great book. It is made for the academic reader, but the subject matter is something that most people could really get into. I wish I had read this when I was young and impressionable. But because it is charting new ground, the authors had very little to work from. As a consequence, they had to fall back on psychological studies that are flawed in their assumptions. But nonetheless, even the two articles written by psychologists were fascinating, if speculative in places. I have penciled-in comments on almost every page! It points directions for new ways of thinking about not only romantic love but other human experiences, and makes you wonder about your assumptions. Hopefully anthropologists will be inspired by this book to examine this aspect of the human condition they have mostly neglected. And more important, hopefully others will read this and see that all is not as we think. I came away from this book with a better understanding of my own feelings, as well as how they fit in with the rest of the human race.