William James: In the Maelstrom of American Modernism : a Biography

Front Cover
Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2006 - Biography & Autobiography - 622 pages
The definitive biography of the fascinating William James, whose life and writing put an indelible stamp on psychology, philosophy, teaching, and religion -- on modernism itself

Pivotal member of the Metaphysical Club, author of The Varieties of Religious Experience, eldest sibling in the extraordinary James family, William emerges here as an immensely complex and curious man.

William James, ten years in the making, draws on a vast number of unpublished letters, journals, and family records to illuminate what James himself called the buzzing blooming confusion of his life. Richardson shows James struggling to achieve amid the domestic chaos and intellectual brilliance of his father, his brother Henry, and his sister Alice. There are portraits of James's early years as a student at the appallingly hidebound Harvard of the 1860s. And there are the harrowing suicidal episodes, after which James, still a young man, turns from depression to action with a heave of will. Through impassioned scholarship, Richardson illuminates James's hugely influential works: the Varieties, Principles of Psychology, Talks to Teachers, and Pragmatism.

As a longtime professor James taught courage and risk-taking. He was W.E.B. Du Bois's adviser and teacher, and he told another of his students, Gertrude Stein, to reject nothing -- that rejecting anything was the beginning of the end for an intellectual. One of the great figures in mysticism, James coined the phrase stream of consciousness.

 

Contents

I
1
II
9
III
11
IV
17
V
24
VI
28
VII
33
VIII
41
LI
291
LII
299
LIII
301
LIV
310
LV
318
LVI
326
LVII
332
LVIII
339

IX
48
X
56
XI
65
XII
74
XIII
81
XIV
85
XV
94
XVI
101
XVII
104
XVIII
108
XIX
115
XX
117
XXI
123
XXII
128
XXIII
133
XXIV
139
XXV
141
XXVI
148
XXVII
153
XXVIII
161
XXIX
168
XXX
176
XXXI
183
XXXII
191
XXXIV
193
XXXV
199
XXXVI
203
XXXVII
211
XXXVIII
217
XXXIX
223
XL
230
XLI
236
XLII
240
XLIII
245
XLIV
253
XLV
257
XLVI
264
XLVII
268
XLVIII
275
XLIX
283
L
287
LIX
344
LX
349
LXI
354
LXII
357
LXIII
361
LXIV
366
LXV
372
LXVI
376
LXVII
380
LXVIII
385
LXIX
389
LXX
394
LXXI
398
LXXII
402
LXXIII
407
LXXIV
412
LXXV
417
LXXVI
419
LXXVII
424
LXXVIII
428
LXXIX
432
LXXX
435
LXXXI
439
LXXXII
444
LXXXIII
446
LXXXIV
451
LXXXV
456
LXXXVI
459
LXXXVII
468
LXXXVIII
474
LXXXIX
477
XC
484
XCI
489
XCII
491
XCIII
497
XCIV
502
XCV
506
XCVI
510
XCVII
514
XCVIII
521
Copyright

Other editions - View all

Common terms and phrases

About the author (2006)

ROBERT D. RICHARDSON is the author of Henry Thoreau: A Life of the Mind and Emerson: The Mind on Fire. He is the recipient of the Francis Parkman Prize, the Melcher Book Award, and the Bancroft Prize, and was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award, among many other honors.

Bibliographic information