THE RED LAMP OF INCEST
An Enquiry into the Orgins of Mind and Society
Paperback: 271 pages
Current: Notre Dame University Press, 1983)
(With a new preface by the author)
www.nd.edu/~undpress
ISBN: 0-268-01620-8 Buy this book at Amazon.com
This is perhaps my most ambitious book, as the subtitle suggests: and the most controversial. I think the overall argument holds up well. See what you think!
From the jacket: A fascinating and controversial reappraisal of human nature and society that focuses on the incest taboo. Eschewing a narrow biological approach to human society, Fox synthesizes information drawn from the natural and social sciences. By critically examining the theory that the incest taboo is the crucial distinction between man and beast, he sets out to discover the origin of humanity. This investigation into the primitive past leads to an incisive discussion of man's continued place in evolution.
Reviews:
"The most important book on incest in the last hundred years." Joseph Shepher, in Incest: A Biosocial View
"We may conclude by praising the ambitious and synthetic nature of this "mini-magnum opus." Fox has used the best biological, neurological, primatological and anthropological data to try to give us a picture of the built-in tendencies and limitations of our biosocial selves. He warns us that we cannot for long upset this evolved set of mechanisms whatever else changes in the world… The reader must contend with the consequences of the possibility that Fox is essentially correct." Nelson Graburn (Berkeley), SEICUS Review
"The book is fleshed out with fascinating excursions into the anthropological literature. On primate social organization; on the growth of the brain and human intelligence; on systems of marriage exchange… So far as incest and exogamy are concerned, this book has much to say which is sensible and true." Adam Kuper, New Society
"Commentaries on disciplines have nothing to do with the extraordinary success of Fox in convincing the reader that a unified theory of human behavior must include everything from neuroscience to aesthetics, and indeed that one must have the courage to put it all together. Fox's insights and integrative attempts are probably among the most exciting of current ideas we have: they are "good to play with." L. Romanucci-Ross, Reviews in Anthropology
"Fox writes not only with learning and authority but with a certain effortless elegance and charm. It is not a book however that can be read, as it were, standing on one foot. It requires the reader's close attention, for it is full of close reasoning supported by a battery of facts, as well as a good deal of theorizing… In his discussion of Freud, Fox has written the finest exposition of the "primal horde" theory extant, and at the same time improved upon it… Fox has written the best book ever on the origins of the incest taboo." Ashley Montagu, The Chicago Sun-Times
Comments:
"In this original and highly literate book, Robin Fox makes sense of what was previously a morass of conflicting theory on sex and kinship." E. O. Wilson, (Harvard) author of Sociobiology, On Human Nature, Consilience, etc
"The Red Lamp of Incest is the outstanding achievement of one of the most original anthropologists of our time." John Pfieffer, author of The Creative Explosion, etc.
"A formidable work of scholarship integrating many strands of research and theory… the definitive study of "the incest taboo" for at any rate this half of the twentieth century."
Meyer Fortes, William Wyse professor of anthropology, Cambridge.
"In the intellectual gap between E. O. Wilson's Sociobiology and Levi-Strauss's The Savage Mind, lies a wealth of problems that both structuralists and sociobiologists have failed to solve. The Red Lamp of Incest stands as a distinguished and almost solitary sentinel looking over and lighting this rough but rich terrain. Robin Fox is uniquely qualified to analyze human kinship, that most central of anthropological issues, using the full power of both approaches. He has done this brilliantly and gracefully, and along the way cast light on the evolution of the human brain as well. This is one of the most under-appreciated books about human nature and behavior published in recent years, and I predict that it will grow steadily in stature as social scientists come to grips with the full implications of modern biology." Melvin Konner, (Emory), author of The Tangled Wing, Becoming a Doctor, The Paleolithic Prescription, Unsettled, etc.
