Customer Reviews

In Search of the Primitive

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I love this book, and refer to it constantly, both in my life and in my books. It has the best first sentence of any book I've ever read: "Civilization originates in conquest abroad and repression at home." And the book takes off from there. It is an extraordinary exploration of the indigenous peoples with whom Diamond worked, and explores the differences between, for example, indigenous and civilized moralities. Here is what he wrote about morality in a civilized world: Our moral syntax has no predicate. Hence we speak of doing good, good for its own sake, or evil. We convert each to a pure substantive, beyond experience, abstract. That is what [anthropologist] Paul Radin meant when he observed that the subject (or object) to which love, remorse, sorrow, may be directed is regarded as secondary in our civilization. All have the rank of virtues as such: they are manifestations of Gods if not of Mans way. But among primitives . . . the converse holds. Morality is behavior, values are not detached, not substantives; the good, the true, the beautiful or rather, the ideas of these things, do not exist. Therefore, one does not fall in love, one loves another; and that is an intricately learned experience, as hate, in a certain sense, also is.

The whole book is that good. Fabulous. Fabulous.

The previous two reviews are for a different book (paperback, with the same title, but no subtitle), by Stanley Diamond. Both reviews refer to Diamond's book, not Cotlow's, because they mention Diamond by name. Apparently both reviews were erroneously attatched to the hardback edition of the Cotlow book, unbeknownst to the reviewers.

I'm hoping Amazon will correct this error.

I have owned this book for many years by Lewis Cotlow. I reread it every now and then. It is a good nonfiction look at a man that wanted to see life on the wild side through the eyes of native people while respecting their culture. In many instances, Cotlow "joined" the tribe and became one with them. It is a great look at unvarnished native life in all its charm and terror.

Despite some passages where Diamond spends a little too much time defining what anthropology should be, this book is truly wonderful and one of its kind. An absolute must-read.