Volume 22, Number 16 · October 16, 1975
American Prophet
By Frederick C. Crews
Life History and the Historical Moment
by Erik H. Erikson
Norton, 283 pp., $9.95
The appearance of another collection of Erik Erikson's incidental pieces, loosely connected in theme, is not in itself an event of great significance—not, certainly, one to be compared with the arrival of the brilliant and novel studies on which his reputation mainly rests: Childhood and Society, Young Man Luther, Gandhi's Truth. It has been six years now since Erikson's last major book, and though everything he writes merits attention, his career has recently been in a phase of clarification, consolidation, and response to criticism. Recently Erikson the author has been much occupied with Erikson the figure: with the benevolent adjuster of social polarities (as in his cautious and labored encounter with Huey Newton at Yale); with the prophet and catalyst of a 'new identity' for Americans and others;[1] and with the psychohistorical pioneer whose well-intentioned dicta, twisted by partisan opponents, must be patiently restated, not without an occasional note of injured majesty.
Review, 5069 words
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