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The Outsider: The Life and Times of Roger Barker
Roger Garlock Barker was one of the most extraordinary — and least known — figures in the history of psychology. Just months after becoming chair of the psychology department at the University of Kansas in the late 1940s, Barker decamped with his family to the tiny backwoods town of Oskaloosa, population 725. It wasn’t escape Barker was after, but revelation. What Jane Goodall would do with chimpanzees in Tanzania, Barker wanted to do with his own species — homo sapiens — in its natural habitat. He hoped to understand nothing less than the “naturally occurring behavior” of “free-ranging persons.”
Barker stayed in Oskaloosa not for a one-off round of observations, but for a lifetime. He and his wife, Louise, joined its churches and social clubs. He sent his children to its schools. And for 25 years, Barker, his colleagues and even Louise and the three kids gathered meticulous data on the ebb and flow of everyday life in what he believed was a quintessential Midwestern town. He locked up his findings in the vault of an old bank building on the town square, in a rickety suite of offices that would rise to international renown as the “Midwest Psychological Field Station.”
The iconoclastic Barker saw his work as revolutionary, and by the early 1960s, establishment figures in psychology could no longer ignore his prodigious and painstaking output. Barker won hundreds of thousands of dollars in grant money and was decorated with the same prestigious awards given over the years to better-known luminaries like B.F. Skinner, Jean Piaget and Noam Chomsky. Margaret Mead visited Barker’s field station, as did Washington officials, foundation presidents, and scholars from universities as far afield as Norway and Australia.
But the shining new path Barker had illuminated for psychology faded suddenly into oblivion, the victim of forces Barker felt powerless to control.
In THE OUTSIDER, award-winning journalist and author Ariel Sabar tells a cinematic story of Barker’s improbable rise and fall. The page-turning narrative takes readers on a journey into the life and times of one of psychology’s most original thinkers, raising fascinating questions about what separates the Darwins and Freuds of science from the sometimes just-as-brilliant also-rans.
Cover design by Hannah Perrine Mode.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Ariel Sabar won the National Book Critics Circle Award for his debut book, My Father's Paradise: A Son's Search for his Family’s Past, which was excerpted in The New York Times Magazine and translated into several languages. His second book, Heart of the City, was called a "beguiling romp" (New York Times) and an "engaging, moving and lively read" (Toronto Star). He is a contributor to Smithsonian Magazine whose writing has also appeared in Harper's, the New York Times, Boston Globe, Washington Post, and Washingtonian Magazine. He is a magna cum laude graduate of Brown University and an award-winning former staff writer for the Providence (RI) Journal, Baltimore Sun and Christian Science Monitor, where he covered the 2008 presidential campaigns. He has taught creative writing at The George Washington University and lectured on the crafts of journalism and memoir at Brown, Johns Hopkins, and Georgetown. He has been interviewed about his books and articles on NPR, PBS NewsHour, and the BBC World Service.
Barker stayed in Oskaloosa not for a one-off round of observations, but for a lifetime. He and his wife, Louise, joined its churches and social clubs. He sent his children to its schools. And for 25 years, Barker, his colleagues and even Louise and the three kids gathered meticulous data on the ebb and flow of everyday life in what he believed was a quintessential Midwestern town. He locked up his findings in the vault of an old bank building on the town square, in a rickety suite of offices that would rise to international renown as the “Midwest Psychological Field Station.”
The iconoclastic Barker saw his work as revolutionary, and by the early 1960s, establishment figures in psychology could no longer ignore his prodigious and painstaking output. Barker won hundreds of thousands of dollars in grant money and was decorated with the same prestigious awards given over the years to better-known luminaries like B.F. Skinner, Jean Piaget and Noam Chomsky. Margaret Mead visited Barker’s field station, as did Washington officials, foundation presidents, and scholars from universities as far afield as Norway and Australia.
But the shining new path Barker had illuminated for psychology faded suddenly into oblivion, the victim of forces Barker felt powerless to control.
In THE OUTSIDER, award-winning journalist and author Ariel Sabar tells a cinematic story of Barker’s improbable rise and fall. The page-turning narrative takes readers on a journey into the life and times of one of psychology’s most original thinkers, raising fascinating questions about what separates the Darwins and Freuds of science from the sometimes just-as-brilliant also-rans.
Cover design by Hannah Perrine Mode.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Ariel Sabar won the National Book Critics Circle Award for his debut book, My Father's Paradise: A Son's Search for his Family’s Past, which was excerpted in The New York Times Magazine and translated into several languages. His second book, Heart of the City, was called a "beguiling romp" (New York Times) and an "engaging, moving and lively read" (Toronto Star). He is a contributor to Smithsonian Magazine whose writing has also appeared in Harper's, the New York Times, Boston Globe, Washington Post, and Washingtonian Magazine. He is a magna cum laude graduate of Brown University and an award-winning former staff writer for the Providence (RI) Journal, Baltimore Sun and Christian Science Monitor, where he covered the 2008 presidential campaigns. He has taught creative writing at The George Washington University and lectured on the crafts of journalism and memoir at Brown, Johns Hopkins, and Georgetown. He has been interviewed about his books and articles on NPR, PBS NewsHour, and the BBC World Service.
- GenresPsychologyNonfiction
99 pages, Kindle Edition
First published January 24, 2014
19 people are currently reading
62 people want to read
About the author
Ariel Sabar
5 books71 followersAriel Sabar won the National Book Critics Circle Award for his debut book, My Father's Paradise: A Son's Search for his Jewish Past in Kurdish Iraq (2008). His second book, Heart of the City (2011), was called a "beguiling romp" (New York Times) and an "engaging, moving and lively read" (Toronto Star). His Kindle Single, The Outsider: The Life and Times of Roger Barker (2014), was a best-selling nonfiction short. His latest book—Veritas: A Harvard Professor, a Con Man and the Gospel of Jesus's Wife—was published to rave reviews in August 2020.
Sabar is also an award-winning journalist whose work has appeared in The New York Times Magazine, Harper's, The Atlantic, The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal, Mother Jones, and This American Life, among many other places. He has reported from Africa, Europe, and the Middle East.
Sabar graduated magna cum laude from Brown University. He taught creative writing at The George Washington University and has lectured about his books and magazine stories at Johns Hopkins University, Georgetown University, the Royal Geographical Society of London, and Yale University, where he was a Poynter Fellow in Journalism. He has been interviewed about his books and articles on NPR, PBS NewsHour, and the BBC World Service.
Sabar is also an award-winning journalist whose work has appeared in The New York Times Magazine, Harper's, The Atlantic, The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal, Mother Jones, and This American Life, among many other places. He has reported from Africa, Europe, and the Middle East.
Sabar graduated magna cum laude from Brown University. He taught creative writing at The George Washington University and has lectured about his books and magazine stories at Johns Hopkins University, Georgetown University, the Royal Geographical Society of London, and Yale University, where he was a Poynter Fellow in Journalism. He has been interviewed about his books and articles on NPR, PBS NewsHour, and the BBC World Service.
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Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews
December 3, 2022
I am an experimental psychologist specialising in Individual Differences and I became familiar with Roger Barker's work over 40 years ago. The discovery of this book allowed me to revisit and reevaluate his contribution to the area of naturalistic/immediate observation which has recently come back into prominence in the context of wearable devices, smartphones and telehealth. I thought that Ariel Sabar gave a balanced and thoughtful account which offers guidance to those aspiring to revolutionise the field of behaviour measurement in the digital era.
March 5, 2014
I went with 3 stars because I think a lot of effort went into this. It sounded like an interesting topic, but it just wasn't very interesting to read. I didn't know anything about Roger Barker before, and I feel like it could have used more of an introduction. I never got a feel for why the author was so interested in him to do all the research and write this.
February 23, 2014
Fascinating read
A sympathetic recounting of a mostly-forgotten character in psychology. It is an interesting story of a man who genuinely set out to naturally observe the behavior of others
A sympathetic recounting of a mostly-forgotten character in psychology. It is an interesting story of a man who genuinely set out to naturally observe the behavior of others
July 1, 2014
I really enjoyed reading this book, I learned and loved it. I've been always fond of psychology and this book provided great insights into the life and work of somebody I had never heard. Ariel did a fantastic work, well done
March 15, 2014
Very hard to rate because at times it was fascinating and at times I kept stalling out and reading other things. Interesting story.
April 29, 2015
Interesting topic. Nice quick read.
April 28, 2017
reads like a research paper
Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews