The Hidden Dimension

Media:	Paperback
Author:	Edward T. Hall
Publisher:	Anchor
Release date:	01 September, 1990
List price:	~~$12.95~~
Our price:	$9.71 that is 25% off!

The Hidden Dimension

Average rating: Stars

Badly dated

It had been required reading when I was in college, but I found it hadn't aged very well on a second reading. Hall tried to make his case against urban overcrowding, citing the "behavioral sinks" that were being created in the 1960's. He presented numerous examples, starting with mice, that showed the debilitating effects overcrowding has on animals, and applied this to the overpopulated urban environments.

More interesting was the study he did on the way persons from different culture perceive space, drawing from American, European, Arab and Asian societies. Even between Americans and English the differences were startling, but it seemed to me that he made too much of these differences, that affluence has as much a role in shaping the way people perceive space as does culture, which Hall did not touch upon.

Hall was pessimistic of the modern cities in America, noting that the race riots, in his mind, resulted from the cultural differences between Whites, Blacks and Hispanics. I think it had more to do with social inequalities than it did race, but Hall seemed convinced there are inherit differences between the races that could not be overcome, which I found to be too deterministic.

The Hidden Dimension - Edward T. Hall

Down the drain

Edward T. Hall's The Hidden Dimension, perhaps the scariest book (even scarier than 1984) I ever read. Scary, because it isn't fiction, but a rather elaborate essay on anthropology and proxemic behaviour. If Hall's right, things as disregard for other cultures, mindless urban development and demographic growth have generated a behavioral sink in which stress, crime, intolerance and physical and psychic disease grow everyday, and to make things worse, our governments take measures that only accelerate the process. We are all going down the drain.

Edward T. Hall - The Hidden Dimension

Put Ed Hall's Insights to Work in Your World

Ed Hall is one of the preeminent cultural anthropologists of all times. His work, studies, and insights into the rich modern anthropology reflect a life long passion he developed as a teenager in the 1930's Southwest U.S. assigned to work on white-managed WPA crews alongside Navajo workers whose cultural bearings and world views were vastly different than his own people's views.

Hidden Dimensions examines the cultural contexts of space, how peoples define their personal and community spaces as part of their cultural norms.

How far apart or close do people of a similar culture feel comfortable standing or sitting next to one another and in what circumstances? When do you feel someone is "in your space"? This personal comfort zone differs culture to culture. Yours may be different than mine. Hall develops these "proxemics" (proximity) in this book by observing and visiting with peoples from around the globe, and shares the wisdom gained with you so that you might expand your own world views and spatial orientations when mixing with foreign cultures to your own.

Well worth the sheckles to add this great work to your life's library. Collect all of Hall's works.

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