Alan C. Elms is Professor of Psychology at the University of California, Davis. He is the author of Personality
in Politics and other books, as well as many articles in popular magazines and professional journals.
Review
"Methodology, writing skill, and subject all combine in this book in the most exciting tradition of creative
scholarship."
--Extrapolation
"Professor Elms has gotten to the heart of the problem of biography: how to apply psychological understanding
without bogging down in detail or drowning in theory. With quick wit and splendid erudition he dissects the lives
of major figures in science, politics, literature, and the arts . . . . A landmark contribution to the integration
of clinical and biographical studies of human development."
--Peter Ostwald, M.D. , author of Schumann: The Inner Voices of a Musical Genius and Vaslav Nijinsky: A Leap
into Madness
Oxford University Press Web Site, May, 2000
Summary
Uncovering Lives shows that, in the hands of a skilled practitioner, psychobiography can rival the very best
traditional biography in the insights it offers. The book features many fascinating case studies of over a dozen
prominent figures, among them Sigmund Freud (the father of psychobiography), B.F. Skinner, Isaac Asimov, L. Frank
Baum, Vladimir Nabokov, Jimmy Carter, George Bush, Saddam Hussein, and Henry Kissinger. Elms supports each study
with extensive research, much of it never presented before.
