"The terrain of the self is vast," notes renowned psychiatrist Arnold Ludwig, "parts known, parts impenetrable, and parts unexplored." How do we construct a sense of ourselves? How can a self reflect upon itself or deceive itself? Is all personal identity plagiarized? Is a "true" or "authentic" self even possible? Is it possible to really "know" someone else or ourselves for that matter? To answer these and many other intriguing questions, Ludwig takes a unique approach, examining the art of biography for the insights it can give us into the construction of the self. In The Biography of the Self, he takes readers on an intriguing tour of the biographer's art, revealing how much this can tell us about ourselves.

Drawing on in-depth interviews with twenty-one of our most esteemed biographers--writers such as David McCullough (the biographer of Truman and Theodore Roosevelt), Wallace Stegner (John Wesley Powell), Gloria Steinem (Marilyn Monroe), Leon Edel (Henry James), Peter Gay (Freud), Diane Middlebrook (Anne Sexton), and many others--and interweaving fascinating observations of his own practice, Ludwig takes us through the labyrinthine hall of mirrors we term the self and shows us how malleable, elusive, and paradoxical it can be. In chapters such as "The 'Real' Marilyn," "Psychoanalyzing Freud," "How Did Hitler Live With Himself?" and "What Madness Reveals," we sit in as biographers talk not only about their work, but about their subjects (Allan Bullock on Hitler and Stalin, for instance, or Arnold Rampersad on Langston Hughes) and how their subjects saw themselves. Ludwig describes how biographers must impose a narrative structure on their subjects' lives to create order out of a mass of often contradictory views, baffling behavior, and inconsistent self-representations, much in the same way that psychotherapists try to foster self-awareness and understanding in their patients.

In his concluding chapter, Ludwig introduces a new concept--biographical freedom--which brilliantly reconciles free will and determinism. We can, he asserts, become biographers of ourselves. Like the biographer, we are constrained to consider all the available facts of our lives--the personal experiences, cultural forces, and predetermined scripts that shape us--but we remain free to interpret, emphasize, and fashion these givens into a cohesive and meaningful narrative of our own choosing.

This thought-provoking volume offers not only a wide-ranging and informative commentary on the biographer's art, but also a highly original theory of the self. Readers interested in biography and in the lives of others will come away with a new sense of what it means to be a "person" and, in particular, who they are.

Psychiatrist Ludwig weaves insights from in-depth interviews with 21 biographers with observations from his own practice to investigate the mechanisms by which people construct identities. He describes how biographers must impose a narrative structure on the mass of often contradictory information in much the same way therapists try to foster understanding and awareness in their patients. He concludes by asserting that people can use the same methods to find meaning in their lives.
Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)

"How Do We Know Who We Are is as stimulating and provocative an inquiry into the vexed question of the self, from the linked points of view of the psychiatrist's science and the biographer's art, as we have seen in recent years. Dr. Ludwig brings to the process not only his learning and complex experience as a psychiatrist but also a deep sympathy for and genuine understanding of the thorny challenges facing the serious biographer. Everyone interested in the field of biography, or the even more far-reaching problem of locating and then representing the self, should find this book both challenging and satisfying."--Arnold Rampersad, author of The Life of Langston Hughes and The Art and Imagination of W.E.B. DuBois

Includes bibliographical references (p. 265-285) and index.

About the Author -

Arnold Ludwig, author of the acclaimed The Price of Greatness, is E.A. Edwards Professor of Psychiatry at the University of Kentucky College of Medicine.