Eskimo Realities

by Edmund Carpenter

Eskimo Realities

223 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1973

Reviews

[Carnegie Olson · Rating 3 out of 5]

As a companion to Upside Down: Arctic Realities which was published several decades later, this arty little introduction to the indigenous culture of the northern circumpolar region is dreamily compelling in its way, seemingly keen to express something of the Eskimo world view, mindset or
perspective more than attempting a scholarly analysis of their culture. Carpenter was an anthropologist who specialized in media studies and non-literate cultures in New Guinea and elsewhere but, having married Adelaide de Menil, a photographer and heir to the De Menil oil equipment fortune in the 1960s, he apparently became free to pursue more of what I would term the cultural mythos within the imagery he termed "art." Some of the imagery and most of the insights are duplicated within Upside Down rendering this book non-essential but perhaps worthy for so-called completists.

[Jimgosailing]

This book was assigned in a sociology course I took in college. Such a beautiful book - too nice to think of as only a textbook.

[Nathan Elberg · Rating 5 out of 5]

I took a course in primitive art with Prof. Carpenter. He handed out copies of this book to the students, saying the publisher was going to destroy them as unsold. Edmund Carpenter understood the Inuit, understood culture, and makes these understandable to the reader.