Personality & Ideology

At a time when conventional analyses are passed off as revolutionary by self-identified radicals, Leonard (in "Personality and Ideology") has produced an authentic innovation: a Marxist approach to thinking about individual differences. The extent to which questionable or bogus internal and individual "explanations" are generated to explain today's social problems is a clear indication of the importance of understanding the alternative Leonard sets out. My only complaint is the amount of time spent trying to accommodate Freud rather than either ignoring him or exposing him for the quack he was. Even so, from the perspective of mainstream practitioners, this is a terrific introduction to the sorting out issues of "the personal" and "the social."