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Cover

Life Histories and Psychobiography

Explorations in Theory and Method

William McKinley Runyan

Publication Date - 19 April 1984

ISBN: 9780195034868

304 pages
Paperback

Runyan reviews and responds to major criticism of psychobiography and of the case study method, and suggests criteria for evaluating and improving in-depth studies of individual lives.

Description

"The one essential book in the field" In this pathbreaking study, Runyan reviews and responds to major criticism of psychobiography and of the case study method, and suggests criteria for evaluating and improving in-depth studies of individual lives. Theoretical points are vividly illustrated with examples from the lives of (among others) Vincent Van Gogh, Emily Dickinson, Abraham Lincoln, Shakespeare, Malcolm X, Woodrow Wilson, Virginia Woolf, and several of Freud's classic case studies. "The most informative, clear, objective, and comprehensive book written on this topic to date. It is both the ideal text for a graduate course in psycho-history and the one essential book in the field which every library should have."--The Journal of the History of the Behavioral Sciences