Synopses & Reviews
In the early twentieth century, affection between parents and their children was discouragedpsychologists thought it would create needy kids, and doctors thought it would spread infectious disease. It took a revolution in psychology to overturn these beliefs and prove that touch ensures emotional and intellectual health.
In Love at Goon Park, Pulitzer Prize winner Deborah Blum charts this profound cultural shift by tracing the story of Harry Harlowthe man who studied neglect and its life-altering consequences on primates in his lab. The biography of both a man and an idea, Love at Goon Park ultimately invites us to examine ourselves and the way we love.
Synopsis
The remarkable story of how one of the twentieth century's most important and controversial psychologists revolutionized our understanding of love
Synopsis
In Love at Goon Park, Pulitzer Prize-winner Deborah Blum charts a profound cultural shift from how doctors discouraged parents from touching their children to when that belief was overturned, and in doing so proved the emotional and intellectual benefits of touch. Through studying neglect and its life-altering consequences on primates in his lab, Harry Harlow confirmed love's central role in shaping not only how we feel but also how we think. The story of an evolution of both a man and an idea, Love at Goon Park ultimately invites us to examine ourselves and the way we love.
Synopsis
In this meticulously researched and masterfully written book, Pulitzer Prize-winner Deborah Blum examines the history of love through the lens of its strangest unsung hero: a brilliant, fearless, alcoholic psychologist named Harry Frederick Harlow. Pursuing the idea that human affection could be understood, studied, even measured, Harlow (1905-1981) arrived at his conclusions by conducting research-sometimes beautiful, sometimes horrible-on the primates in his University of Wisconsin laboratory. Paradoxically, his darkest experiments may have the brightest legacy, for by studying "neglect" and its life-altering consequences, Harlow confirmed love's central role in shaping not only how we feel but also how we think. His work sparked a psychological revolution. The more children experience affection, he discovered, the more curious they become about the world: Love makes people smarter. The biography of both a man and an idea, The Measure of Love is a powerful and at times disturbing narrative that will forever alter our understanding of human relationships.
About the Author
Deborah Blum is a professor of journalism at the University of Wisconsin and Vice President of the National Association of Science Writers. She won a Pulitzer Prize in 1992 for her newspaper reporting about primate experiments and ethics, the subject of her acclaimed first book, The Monkey Wars.