"Can an examination of the single word 'character' sustain a book of 383 pages and another 40-odd pages of endnotes? Turns out it can, and does so brilliantly in Marjorie Garber's magisterial book. . . . Scholarly by training and savvy by instinct, she writes without any of the dampening jargon now common in academic prose and with an impressive respect for the complexity of her subject." –Joseph Epstein, The Wall Street Journal
"Absorbing . . . The strength of Garber's book . . . [lies] in her wide-ranging account of how we arrived at the confused and confusing things [character] has meant and means now. . . . The richness of this history is what makes Garber's book fascinating."
–Brian Dillon, Harper's "In her wide-ranging cultural history of the term ['character'], Marjorie Garber wonders if it is merely 'a quaint survival from a more naïve, more ethical, or at least less brazen past.' Yet this noted Shakespeare scholar demonstrates that the term remains a prominent point of reference today . . . Garber has unearthed fascinating material and is a convivial, stimulating critic."
–Michael Saler, The Times Literary Supplement Encyclopedic, eclectic, and swift moving . . .
Character explores not only the linguistic and ethical but also the sociological, psychological, scientific, and pseudoscientific dimensions of its subject . . . Garber is especially good on the intersection of character and gender, in particular on the relationship traditionally asserted between the cultivation of character and ideas of masculine honor. –
Elizabeth D. Samet, The American Scholar Hectic and absorbing . . . Garber is at her most fluent and thorough . . . [as she] draws out how the ideology of empire infused the philosophy of the Boy Scouts – to tame oneself before taming the world. –
Parul Sehgal, The New York Times Book Review "While sophisticated and filled to the brim with academic references, Garber's book effectively makes the content accessible and interesting.
Character exemplifies Garber's many areas of expertise, interacting well with other works to ultimately leave readers with a clarified perspective and new method of analyzing the complicated workings of society." –
Nina M. Foster, The Harvard Crimson Intriguing and informative . . . Garber is skilled at drawing connections between different cultural moments; for instance, she connects modern–and, to her, flawed–efforts to map character through brain scans with the 19th-century pseudoscience of phrenology. While Garber leaves her discussion open-ended, her information-rich book will be helpful to readers in highlighting how a concern with character has been central to modern life. –
Publishers Weekly Erudite, illuminating . . . A capacious overview of an enduring human value. –
Kirkus "What is the relation between having character and being a character, or between character and personality? In this immensely wide-ranging exploration of the notion of character in all its varieties, from the Greeks to Brett Kavanaugh and President Trump, Marjorie Garber shows herself to be our most engaging and perspicuous cultural critic, with fascinating evidence about questions that are crucial to our ways of thinking about human values. –
Jonathan Culler, Class of 1916 Chair of English and Comparative Literature, Cornell University