The Elephant Man: A Study in Human Dignity

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.

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."