Oh, what a blow that phantom gave me! [Hardcover]

Edmund Snow Carpenter (Author)

Product Details

• Hardcover: 192 pages
• Publisher: Holt, Rinehart and Winston; 1st edition (1974)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0030068819
• ISBN-13: 978-0030068812
• Product Dimensions: 8.3 x 5.6 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 8 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,103,378 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars need to read now more than ever!, June 30, 2007

By 

Michael Scanlon "Michael Scanlon" (MA USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Oh, What a Blow That Phantom Gave Me! (Mass Market Paperback)

This is a very curious book, and when I read it in the mid 70's it had a profound influence on my relationship to the media. Do not miss the studies of brain wave function comparing activity level among readers, watchers of television, and sleepers; the latter two are about equal. The incident of the poet doing a reading of his poems in a coffee house who could not get the audience's attention until he stopped reading and turned on a tape recording of himslf reading the same materials is on the surface amusing but also chilling in what it says about society's relationship to real experience and simulation.

While ostensibly about aboriginal peoples it is his extension of his research into our own society that for me makes this book most interesting and important.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Everyone should read this book., February 3, 2010

By 

D. Swain - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

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This review is from: Oh, what a blow that phantom gave me! (Hardcover)

Edmund Carpenter is pretty much a genius. The book is easy to read without being the slightest bit dumbed down. Not only for those interested in media studies or anthropology, but for anyone who wants to know more about our modern world. Full of insight and fascinating accounts of many cultures.

1 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars independent thinking in athropology, December 31, 2007

By 

reader (mountain view, CA USA) - See all my reviews

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This review is from: Oh, What a Blow That Phantom Gave Me] (Paperback)

I found this book by accident -- it was on a cart at my local bookstore waiting to be shelved. I read it voraciously. I can say that in many ways it changed my life: the story of the new guinea school where mathematics was taught by rote (including errors) caused me to rethink many academic disciplines. The story of the australian teaching eskimos to use a boomerang with the rejoinder "just don't tell any visiting anthropologists where you learned this" caused me to rethink anthropology specifically. Altogether, this book, by a self-proclaimed maverick, broadened my horizons in significant ways. Consider it to be an an exercise in independent thought.