Saturday, February 16, 2013

Napoleon Chagnon and Real Yanomamo in the News: The First of Several Book "Reviews"

There is a new book out by former PSU Professor and somewhat-favorite of many in our group, Napoleon Chagnon.  He was the author of Yanomamo:The Fierce People and a subject of many tough courses in Anthropology at Dear Old State when he was a professor in the 70's. He is also the subject of an extensive article in the NYT.  Yes, I sometimes read "The Gray Lady"!



The new book is a reply to the withering criticism and accusations of malfeasance and worse leveled by others in the academic world in the book Darkness in El Dorado. He stood accused of fomenting the violence he reported and of fabricating data, among even worse things by journalist and author Patrick Tierney.  Chagnon has been mostly cleared of these things since the 2000 publication of Tierney's work.  He answers the criticisms well in his newest book Noble Savages: My Life Among Two Dangerous Tribes - The Yanomamo and the Anthropologists.   (NYT Review Here.)
It's worth a look, especially among those of us distance runners who mimicked the tribe's choice of clothing on many a long run through the woods in those carefree days before political correctness swallowed us whole. 

An Additional Food Review! 

The newest sauce at Burger King is Kung Pao, and you know how I feel about that.  It's waaaaay too sweet, but does provide a little bit of the flavor that rules the world for those who never venture into a Chinese Restaurant.

3 comments:

  1. Don't forget the mud men.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Once glimpsed, the mud men are very' very hard to forget!

    ReplyDelete
  3. In addition to "political correctness" changing us (some), the replacement of shorts with liners and running Indies all but killed our bleached-out athletic-supporter headwear. Then again, I still have a couple left...for a rainy day, I suppose. KKOB

    ReplyDelete

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