| Book Review | The American Historical Review, 104.4

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| Book Review | The American Historical Review, 104.4 | The History Cooperative

Book Review

Methods/Theory

Joel Pfister and Nancy Schnog, editors. Inventing the Psychological: Toward a Cultural History of Emotional Life in America. New Haven: Yale University Press. 1997. Pp. xiv, 329. Cloth $40.00, paper $18.00.

Joel Pfister and Nancy Schnog argue that psychological self-definitions and concepts "gain cultural authority and lose explanatory power at particular historical moments" (p. 3). They argue specifically against the idea that psychological theories extract insights into "timeless human nature" and position themselves against what they consider the more limited approach of psychohistory, defined as "the study of the past through Freudian theory" (pp. 3, 9, 17). The contributors to this edited collection recognize that there are inevitably a variety of approaches to a cultural history of the psychological in modern life, but all share assumptions about the emotions as "historically contingent, socially specific, and politically situated" (p. 8). 1

There are many strengths to the book. Pfister, while long-winded, details the key ideas and concepts of what he considers a new field. John Demos republishes here his excellent and long-ignored piece, "Oedipus and America." Franny Nudelman makes a number of valuable points about "listening to female testimony" in contemporary talk shows. And Jill Morawski and Catherine Lutz both write of cultural meanings of the psychological in ways that directly apply the theoretical categories established by the editors. There is no question the culture has lost its bearings in relation to the psychological. Perhaps only historians are in a position to provide some perspective on the matter and revive a healthy skepticism toward psychological matters in humanistic scholarship. . . .

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