This book by adult educator-philosopher-poet, the late Bonaro W. Overstreet, is one of my favorite in my fear library still to this day. It was published in 1951, then reprinted in 1971--and, unfortunately not reprinted since. It is little known in the world of Fear Studies. I highly recommend you find a copy. It's brilliant in its synthesis, albeit, her work on fear is not totally new, original, or postmodern complicated. Yet, it was written (during the USA "Red Scare" era of McCarthyism) from a woman with amazing depth of understanding into the nature of the human condition and it focuses on "fear" as the root of all other problems. She's a great early fearist (which is my label for her)... yet, her book is for it's era, the best on the Fear-Problem, as Overstreet calls it in Chapter 1.
p.s. I'm currently researching and writing a Technical Paper #125 "Understanding Fear..." which features Bonaro Overstreet's work, and focus on fear stuff.
Here's a juicy quote from Bonaro's book:
Fear is not a private affair....fear, in its cumulative effects, could indeed become the reason why we all die together in a needless man-made holocaust. [1]
Note:
1. Excerpt from p. 103 (1951) and respectively, Preface to the Perennial Edition [1970]
Comments