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Primal Screams: How the Sexual Revolution Created Identity Politics Hardcover – August 26, 2019

by Mary Eberstadt (Author)
4.6 4.6 out of 5 stars 171 ratings
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Who am I? The question today haunts every society in the Western world.  

Legions of people—especially the young—have become unmoored from a firm sense of self. To compensate, they join the ranks of ideological tribes spawned by identity politics and react with frenzy against any perceived threat to their group. 

As identitarians track and expose the ideologically impure, other citizens face the consequences of their rancor: a litany of “isms” run amok across all levels of cultural life, the free marketplace of ideas muted by agendas shouted through megaphones, and a spirit of general goodwill warped into a state of perpetual outrage.  

How did we get here? Why have we divided against one another so bitterly? In Primal Screams, acclaimed cultural critic Mary Eberstadt presents the most provocative and original theory to come along in recent years. The rise of identity politics, she argues, is a direct result of the fallout of the sexual revolution, especially the collapse and shrinkage of the family.  

As Eberstadt illustrates, humans have forged their identities within the kinship structure from time immemorial. The extended family, in a real sense, is the first tribe and teacher. But with its unprecedented decline across various measures, generations of people have been set adrift and can no longer answer the question Who am I? concerning primordial ties. Desperate for solidarity and connection, they claim membership in politicized groups whose displays of frantic irrationalism amount to primal screams for familial and communal loss.

Written in her impeccable style and with empathy rarely encountered in today’s divisive discourse, Eberstadt’s theory holds immense explanatory power that no serious citizen can afford to ignore. The book concludes with three incisive essays by Rod Dreher, Mark Lilla, and Peter Thiel, each sharing their perspective on the author’s formidable argument.  


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  1. Print length
    192 pages
  2. Language
    English
  3. Publisher
    Templeton Press
  4. Publication date
    August 26, 2019
  5. Dimensions
    6 x 1 x 9 inches
  6. ISBN-10
    1599474115
  7. ISBN-13
    978-1599474113
  8. See all details
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Customer reviews

4.6 out of 5 stars
171 global ratings

Customers say

Customers find the writing style brilliant and the content well-documented and spot-on. They also say the book provides food for thought.

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Customers find the book's content food for thought, well-documented, and spot-on. They also say the conclusions are spot- on.

"...on our family - parents, siblings, and extended family - is particularly compelling...." Read more

"Well written and thought provoking. I bought a couple copies to give as gifts for my liberal friends...." Read more

"...Everything is so well documented (and cited). Not sure how you would argue against the thesis. Read this - you will learn things you did not know." Read more

"...That said, this is an amazing contribution to contemporary Philosophy, Sociology, and History, if nothing else, but it is SO much more...." Read more

4 customers mention "Writing style"4 positive0 negative

Customers find the writing style brilliant.

"Excellent read...." Read more

"Well written and thought provoking. I bought a couple copies to give as gifts for my liberal friends...." Read more

"This book is amazing to read, and the conclusions are spot on. Everything is so well documented (and cited)...." Read more

"...The book is an easy read but relatively short and it would have been nice to see some topics explored more thoroughly or given more substantive..." Read more

Top reviews from the United States

James K.
5.0 out of 5 stars A masterful thought piece of enormous importance
Reviewed in the United States on March 31, 2023
Verified Purchase
One core theme, that our sense of our own identity is heavily or primarily built on our family - parents, siblings, and extended family - is particularly compelling. Linkages to the broader animal world are effective in solidifying the author's case. More broadly, the book is a wonderful thought piece. There may be many forces at play shaping our world and the bizarre identity movement, but this book captures at least some of the most important forces. It is a great help in understanding the infantile hysteria and directionless panic seen in particular among some on college campuses. It is food for thought.
2 people found this helpful
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Heveliusz
5.0 out of 5 stars Highly Recommend
Reviewed in the United States on May 25, 2023
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Excellent read. For those of us trying to make sense of today's identity politics, the author describes the sexual revolution and subsequent collapse of the family as a contributing cause.
2 people found this helpful
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Not me
4.0 out of 5 stars Worthy idea, but not science
Reviewed in the United States on July 13, 2023
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There is no science in Mary Eberstadt’s scree. So, this lab scientist had to read it as a cry of frustration. Presumably meant for a lay audience, the text is, unfortunately, sprinkled with dictionary-beckoning erudite terms such as “proscenia”, “quotidian”, “squalling” and “argot”. Supporting evidence (without any tables)—it is all confirmation biased—comes primarily from the oxymoron fields of social science and political science; with enough psychology thrown in to make readers believe they are getting insight to what has produced their victimized minds.
The weight of these caveats, however, did not prevent me from finding her argument compelling. As a Silent Generation member, I happened to have lived through the entire period of her focus. I taught biology to the first post-Pill generation. My students became flower children and Vietnam War protesters. I was on faculty of universities whose humanity professors too often became postmodernist in protest of their science counterparts’ enrichment with government funding, from the late 1960’s on. I witnessed the misdirected idealism of affirmative action, and was sufficiently exposed to be victimized by it. I now see my professional societies, once fully focused on science, now politicized to the point of being deputies for enforcing “diversity”. I know too well the sequalae of divorce, from my own life to the troubled lives of students, too many of whom would have been better off not attending university. I agree with Eberstadt, that we have much to learn from evolutionary psychology. But as a zoologist, I reject her unscientific anthropocentrism (to which, even some animal behaviorists—like Franz de Waal—have succumbed.) Her display of a bit too much religious bias in her final conclusions, makes her call for civility a little suspect. As I propose in my bioengineering ethics text, all moral systems are subjective, so there is no scientifically-preferred choice; although a scientist’s commitment to data integrity is existential. The bottom line of the appeal of Mary Eberstadt’s thesis, is that she appears to agree with the idea that children have a primitive need to feel sufficiently confident in a hostile universe to act independently for their own survival. Confidence grows from the security of having a foundation of order. The foundation is built from a reference, an identity model, that society defines as “normal”. The building process should eschew denigration of identities that do not fit the norm for biological reasons. But it does require commitment to acting in accordance with those that do.
2 people found this helpful
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A. Rau
5.0 out of 5 stars This book should be read widely and become a staple in our discussions on identity politics.
Reviewed in the United States on November 16, 2019
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Mary Eberstadt moves beyond the clichés of our current political and academic discourse on the subject of identity politics and invites us to consider “what the nonstop obsession with identity politics is telling us—about ourselves, our society, and our civilization, and how our radical new way of living is transforming all of the above” (p. 16). She notes that underneath our obsession with identity is an aching need to answer the question: “Who am I?”

Eberstadt maintains that the family has been the seedbed for the development of human identity. Through family relationships—parents, siblings, grandparents, aunts, uncles, and cousins—individuals have for eons worked out their identity. In short, the family has been the most reliable social framework to answer the question "Who am I?"

What happens to our ability to establish a deep sense of identity when the family is in a state of upheaval? We don’t need to speculate on this question, we just have to open our eyes. The evidence of family disintegration is pervasive and ponderous. Eberstadt argues that the “rupture of the human family and the rise of identity politics” are not incidental but are closely connected to each other (P. 61). Chapters 3 through 6 provide compelling evidence and analysis of how family decline and the rise of identity politics are related.
21 people found this helpful
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Jason Carter
5.0 out of 5 stars Understanding the forces shaping our public discourse
Reviewed in the United States on February 2, 2020
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Mary Eberstadt makes a sweeping claim in this book: that the modern phenomenon of identity politics is a response to the fundamental question, "Who am I?" the answer to which has been decimated by the sexual revolution. Where previously the answer was some combination of the family, church, and communal ties that circumscribed an individual's relationship to the world around him, the tenuous ties to these bedrocks of civilization lead 21st century man to scrounge for other answers to the fundamental question.

While it is impossible to be certain about causation, Eberstadt supports her thesis well, including four chapters each dedicated to a different line of "supporting evidence:"

1) Understanding the "Mine!" in Identity Politics;
2) Feminism as Survival Strategy;
3) Androgyny as Survival Strategy; and
4) How #MeToo Reveals the Breakdown of Social Learning.

Throughout, Eberstadt uses psychological studies, lessons from history, patterns of animal behavior, and anecdotal evidence to support her claims.

You don't necessarily have to agree with her thesis to benefit from her arguments. The book concludes with essay responses from three notable commenters, not all of which agree with Eberstadt.

Highly recommended.
24 people found this helpful
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Book Collector
5.0 out of 5 stars Brilliant Read
Reviewed in the United States on November 29, 2019
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Well written and thought provoking. I bought a couple copies to give as gifts for my liberal friends. If they don't see the bigger picture and how the sexual revolution got our culture here, this will definitely help wake them up!
9 people found this helpful
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Paul S Heidmann
5.0 out of 5 stars Amazing Book, Well Documented, Spot On!
Reviewed in the United States on January 6, 2020
Verified Purchase
This book is amazing to read, and the conclusions are spot on. Everything is so well documented (and cited). Not sure how you would argue against the thesis. Read this - you will learn things you did not know.
8 people found this helpful
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Top reviews from other countries

Ookala700
5.0 out of 5 stars Powerful
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on April 20, 2023
Verified Purchase
A great explanation for the psychological underpinnings of the woke movement and its spread throughout institutions across society. Loneliness and social decay is the legacy of the sexual revolution.
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Terry Ames
5.0 out of 5 stars Sexual chaos
Reviewed in Canada on October 4, 2019
Verified Purchase
A frank discussion of the consequences of the sexual revolution.
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