Interaction Ritual

Rating:
Summary: Needs a 21st-century filter
Review: Edgar Schein recommended this book, so I read it. I'm glad I did. Goffman is fascinated by what happens when people engage one another face-to-face, and the essays in this book synthesize many years of observation, research and deep thinking on this topic. There is much to learn in the book, and it's even well-written and filled with interesting anecdotes that illustrate his points.

However, the book was written at a time when psychologists made no distinction between the social actiions of men and women. In this book, "a person" is always male. It's easy to see that the book was written long before Deborah Tannen came along, and it suffers from that.