The Elephant Man: A Study in Human Dignity - Hardcover

Montagu, Ashley

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0876900376 ISBN 13: 9780876900376

Publisher: Outerbridge & Dienstfrey, 1971

Synopsis

After more than a century, the mystery of "The Elephant Man" has been solved. This fascinating story, which has touched the hearts and imaginations of readers throughout the world for over a century, is now complete. The mystifying question has been answered: How could this poor, deformed fellow, so cruelly treated by his fellowman for so long, turn out to be such a gentle, loving creature? Read about it in the new Third Edition of The Elephant Man by Ashley Montagu -- the book whose first edition inspired the movie and the Tony Award-winning play by the same name.

About this title

About the Author:

ASHLEY MONTAGU, internationally renowned anthropologist and social biologist, has spent a lifetime examining and exposing some of the most widely held myths concerning humankind. Born 28 June, 1905 in London, he came to the United States in 1927 to begin graduate studies at Columbia University in New York. He taught anatomy and anthropology at New York University in the 1930s, received a Ph.D in anthropology in 1937 at Columbia, and was professor of anthropology and chairman of the Department of Anthropology at Rutgers University from 1949 to 1955. He also taught at Harvard, Princeton and the University of California at Santa Barbara. In a prolific book-writing career that has spanned six decades, Montagu has ventured into the controversial areas of race, child-rearing and relations between the sexes. Against a solid background of scientific evidence, he has shown the theory of racial superiority to be fallacious, has dismantled the notion that man is naturally superior to woman, and has been emphatic about the tremendous importance of proper child-rearing, socially, biologically and psychologically. The Natural Superiority of Women (1953), The Elephant Man (1971), Touching (1987), Man's Most Dangerous Myth: The Fallacy of Race (1971), and The Human Connection (1979) are among his best-known books. Others include On Being Human (1950), Life Before Birth (1964), Immortality, Religion and Morals (1971), The Nature of Human Aggression (1976), and The American Way of Life (1967). Dr. Montagu was the principal officer responsible for drawing up the UNESCO Statement on Race, the director of the Department of Child Growth and Development at New York University, the director of the New Jersey Commission for Physical Health and Development, and one of the scientists who drew up the bill for the formation of the National Science Foundation. Current Biography points out: "During the 1950s Montagu was perhaps the best-known anthropologist and one of the most popular university professors in the United States."

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.:

LOVE: The Secret Name of All the Virtues "The love a mother gives her child constitutes the pattern and the basic patent by which we are designed to grow and develop all the days of our lives. Love is characterized by a wisdom that not even wisdom can replace. It is this love that made Joseph Merrick -- in spite of the dreadful physical deformities from which he suffered -- the loving spirit that he became, for when one is loved one grows spiritually. "Love is the greatest gift that one human being can make to another, and this is undoubtedly the gift from his mother that made Joseph Merrick what he became. "By love is meant the ability to communicate to the other, by demonstrative acts, one's profound involvement in their welfare, such that you give them all the support, succor, stimulation, and encouragement for their healthy growth and development; that they can always depend upon you standing by; that you will never commit the supreme treason of letting them down when they are in need; that you will always be there to respond to their need; that you will help them fulfill themselves by nuturing and encouraging them to realize all the potentialities that are within them for becoming good and loving human beings, who will live as if to live and love were one, loving others more than one loves oneself." -- Ashley Montagu

About this edition

• Publisher: Outerbridge & Dienstfrey
• Publication date: 1971
• ISBN 10: 0876900376
• ISBN 13: 9780876900376
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 140