Synopses & Reviews
A pivotal figure in social psychology and personality studies for more than half a century, M. Brewster Smith was the recipient of the Gold Medal Award of the American Psychological Foundation for Lifetime Contributions by a Psychologist to the Public Interest.
Smith has conducted groundbreaking work on the ways in which peoples opinions are influenced by their strategies for coping with the world, with their social relations, and with their inner conflicts. His pioneering book, Opinions and Personality, offered an in-depth treatment of how peoples political opinions reflect and are partly shaped by the ways those views contribute to the functioning of their personalities. More recently, Smith has drawn on psychological research to suggest ways to reduce the threat of nuclear war. Throughout his work, Smith has aspired to an interdisciplinary social psychology that is scientific in its respect for empirical evidence and which can be applied to the social issues of our time.
For a Significant Social Psychology collects Smith's most important writings, introduced by the author and presented thematically.
Review
"One of the best illustrations of contemporary scholars' fascination with the concept of memory as a concept closer to experience, a more human, subjective, and politically subversive notion than History."
"In this fascinating ethnographic account, John Collins shows how Palestinians remember, re-shape, and reinvent in their popular imagination the first Inti-fada, or uprising, of 1987-1993."
"Theoretically sharp and well written, Occupied by Memory propels the scholarship on Palestinians and perpetual states of violence in new and promising directions."
"In Occupied by Memory, John Collins asks the 'intifada generation' to remember aloud the first intifada, what it might have meant, and what it has come to mean for them now. At once provocative and sensitive, John Collins's narrative probes deeply into the history of the last decade of the Palestinian struggle for self-determination, human rights, and social justice."
"A powerfully honest work and a tremendous contribution to the literature on memory and violence in the Middle East. Superbly narrated, Occupied by Memory is compassionate but not sentimental, theoretically astute, and empathetically written."
Review
"In Occupied by Memory, John Collins asks the 'intifada generation' to remember aloud the first intifada, what it might have meant, and what it has come to mean for them now. At once provocative and sensitive, John Collins's narrative probes deeply into the history of the last decade of the Palestinian struggle for self-determination, human rights, and social justice."-Barbara Harlow,author of After Lives: Legacies of Revolutionary Writing
Review
"A powerfully honest work and a tremendous contribution to the literature on memory and violence in the Middle East. Superbly narrated, Occupied by Memory is compassionate but not sentimental, theoretically astute, and empathetically written."-Ussama Makdisi,author of The Culture of Sectarianism: Community, History, and Violence in Nineteenth-Century Ottoman Lebanon
Review
"Theoretically sharp and well written, Occupied by Memory propels the scholarship on Palestinians and perpetual states of violence in new and promising directions."-Julie Peteet,author of Gender in Crisis: Women and the Palestinian Resistance Movement
Review
“This is a fascinating and important collection of articles by one of the most influential elder statesmen of social psychology. Not only does it provide valuable insights into the history of modern social psychology, it also points the way to a more significant future social psychology.”
-Morton Deutsch E.L. ,Thorndike Professor Emeritus, Teachers College, Columbia University
Review
“It is hopeful, in troubled times, to find a social scientist in his ninth decade writing lucidly, self-critically, and wisely about the essential problems and potentialities of his chosen field. And it is an additional pleasure to find that the humanistic values of his youth are burnished rather than tarnished in his old age.”
-Journal of the History of the Behavioral Sciences,
Synopsis
Occupied by Memory explores the memories of the first Palestinian intifada. Based on extensive interviews with members of the "intifada generation," those who were between 10 and 18 years old when the intifada began in 1987, the book provides a detailed look at the intifada memories of ordinary Palestinians.
These personal stories are presented as part of a complex and politically charged discursive field through which young Palestinians are invested with meaning by scholars, politicians, journalists, and other observers. What emerges from their memories is a sense of a generation caught between a past that is simultaneously traumatic, empowering, and excitingand a future that is perpetually uncertain. In this sense, Collins argues that understanding the stories and the struggles of the intifada generation is a key to understanding the ongoing state of emergency for the Palestinian people. The book will be of interest not only to scholars of the Middle East but also to those interested in nationalism, discourse analysis, social movements, and oral history.
About the Author
M. Brewster Smith is Emeritus Professor of Psychology at the University of California, Santa Cruz, and former Preseident of the American Psychological Association. He lives in Santa Cruz, CA.