Turncoats and True Believers

Famous people whose political convictions dominated their lives are examined by a Rutgers sociologist in brief psychobiographies, and are found to have shared childhood traumas, mostly attributable to poor parenting. Winston Churchill, a depressive personality when not swept up in action, adored an unresponsive mother; Bertrand Russell, whose parents' early deaths left him to the care of domineering women, escaped emotional instability in a passion for mathematics and social issues; Betty Friedan's mother was a nagging housewife whose model the feminist author rejected. Hitler, Ayn Rand, Gorbachev, Woodrow Wilson and others are examined on the author's couch. Each is classified by a ``script'' the author develops; they are Skeptics, Doves, Hawks, Utopians, Survivors, Protestors, Committed, Authoritarians or Pragmatists. The muddy lines between these slots are more confusing than clarifying. Though it is interesting to see the common threads, Goertzel's effort to provide a system for understanding the directions of these lives is unsatisfying. (July)