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The Mountain of Names
Trade paperback by Alex Shoumatoff is a history of the human family.
336 pages, Paperback
Published January 1, 1995
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Displaying 1 - 12 of 12 reviews
June 3, 2008
Read. Loved. Essays from New Yorker. I became professional genealogist. Book was my touchstone, philosphically speaking. Couldn't make money. Stopped doing genealogy. Still love book.
September 21, 2007
I loved this book except for the fact that it's 20 years old and kinda out of date now...I really want Shoumatoff to update the statistics for the current generation. However, as a genealogy/ name history buff, it was still a super fun read.
August 9, 2016
This originally appeared in the New Yorker magazine Shoumatoff discusses genealogy and family history in general terms -- this is not a how to do it genealogy book, and gives some fascinating information about the Mormon archives and all the information they have collected. The subtitle of the book is "A History of the Human Family."
May 18, 2019
This work has dated. It also relies too exclusively on a single source for information on LDS rites, and may do the same for other subjects. The many anecdotes create a kind of an uncomfortable cross between a casual chat and a work of research and science, which may be the result of appearing first in The New Yorker.
His error in reporting that the Stuart line in England began with James V, whom he describes as the son of Mary Queen of Scots, daughter of Margaret Tudor, is a complete jumble, and egregious in the context of a chapter on aristocratic descent. He seems to have a poor grasp of English royalty and nobility for one who must mention it so often: he gets Philip II of Spain's relationship to Mary Tudor wrong, and makes an error in the use of British titles in a paragraph instructing us about the use of British titles.
I still enjoyed parts of this book, but others have worn badly. The mistakes are annoying. I don't think I would recommend it.
His error in reporting that the Stuart line in England began with James V, whom he describes as the son of Mary Queen of Scots, daughter of Margaret Tudor, is a complete jumble, and egregious in the context of a chapter on aristocratic descent. He seems to have a poor grasp of English royalty and nobility for one who must mention it so often: he gets Philip II of Spain's relationship to Mary Tudor wrong, and makes an error in the use of British titles in a paragraph instructing us about the use of British titles.
I still enjoyed parts of this book, but others have worn badly. The mistakes are annoying. I don't think I would recommend it.
May 5, 2017
Once again, a non-anthropologist writing about anthropology oversimplifies and flat out gets it wrong. I also found the entire chapter on Mormon beliefs at the end to be incredibly tedious.
June 11, 2020
Kinship is a focal point of this book, from family to inheritance everything here is seen through this lens. As well as how post-industrialism affects it all. It is an old but very interesting book!
February 8, 2014
An interesting book tackling the very large topic of the "history of kinship,” which as far as I can tell is the history of the importance of extended families in history vs. the more recent push toward nuclear families and ultimately, in the years before this book was written in the 1980s, toward individualism and “non-families.”
There are a lot of interesting ideas and observations here, though weakened somewhat by his tendency to take a single article from the NYTimes or an anecdote from pop culture and use it to confirm his reading of a trend.
The discussion of genealogy is interesting, particularly his pointing out how hard it really is at a certain point, and about how very long pedigrees are almost certainly wrong or even made up. That will be a hard point for many amateur genealogists to come to grips with.
The discussion of kinship in English society is also enlightening, and was a very nice compliment to watching Downton Abbey. :)
He ends the book with a look at the most ambitious attempt to try to document the human family - the Mormon Church’s genealogy and family history program. It was interesting to hear an outsider’s look at the effort - he comes across as a bit mystefied by the purpose behind it all, but impressed and grateful for the effort. And it was very fun to read a mention of his conversation with my old bishop, George Fudge, who was apparently the Director of the Genealogical Department of the LDS Church. I never knew what he did with his regular life. I would have been impressed if I had known, even when I knew him at age 9.
There are a lot of interesting ideas and observations here, though weakened somewhat by his tendency to take a single article from the NYTimes or an anecdote from pop culture and use it to confirm his reading of a trend.
The discussion of genealogy is interesting, particularly his pointing out how hard it really is at a certain point, and about how very long pedigrees are almost certainly wrong or even made up. That will be a hard point for many amateur genealogists to come to grips with.
The discussion of kinship in English society is also enlightening, and was a very nice compliment to watching Downton Abbey. :)
He ends the book with a look at the most ambitious attempt to try to document the human family - the Mormon Church’s genealogy and family history program. It was interesting to hear an outsider’s look at the effort - he comes across as a bit mystefied by the purpose behind it all, but impressed and grateful for the effort. And it was very fun to read a mention of his conversation with my old bishop, George Fudge, who was apparently the Director of the Genealogical Department of the LDS Church. I never knew what he did with his regular life. I would have been impressed if I had known, even when I knew him at age 9.
May 18, 2015
This history of the family was well researched although because it was published in the '80s the statistics are very dated. He speaks quite positively about the Mormons and the genealogical efforts the church is engaged in to preserve the records of mankind for posterity, although he relies on Fawn Brodie for his understanding of the church's origins and Joseph Smith and gets it twisted pretty badly.
July 23, 2016
I last read this probably twenty years ago, shortly after I read the author's book about his own family history. I recall it being a fascinating look at how "family" is defined in all the different parts of the world and over time. I am looking forward to re-reading it!
January 28, 2009
Slow read, but very interesting.
September 2, 2016
Interesting but a bit folksy for me. The author seems to have met a vast number of people judging by the huge number of anecdotes.
April 30, 2017
Eye opening! My favorite part is in Chapter 9, where Schoumatoff discussed inbreeding and coefficient of kinship. I like too the part where US Presidents and other famous people are to some extent related to each other. Imagine what could it contribute to disease prevention if many family genes were mapped out.
Displaying 1 - 12 of 12 reviews