Early chapters make strong claims for language as the key to human communication . . . and Perinbanayagam delineates numerous ways language figures into social life and self. This appears to me as . . . [a] strength . . . of the book.

Symbolic Interaction

In his latest book, Identity’s Moments: The Self in Action and Interaction, Robert Perinbanayagam outdoes not only himself, but other renowned interactionists, who earlier wrote on the same or similar topics, such as Nelson Foote, Anselm Strauss, and Gregory Stone, producing the best book of his long, productive career. In my opinion, this is a must buy book—one that you will want to bend over the page corners, underline words and sentences, and scribble notes to yourself in the margins.

Lonnie H. Athens, Seton Hall University

Robert Peribanayagam's latest volume realizes his full potential as a mature scholar. The text spans the humanities in making sense of the manner that human beings come to terms with action in the world; and it is written with what Ortega y Gasset characterizes as 'courteous clarity.' This commitment to making the subtle idea as transparent as possible expands the potential readership for the book—one no longer needs to be a substantial scholar to come to terms with Peribanyagam's ideas, and the ideas of those he references. Peribanayagam shows that he is not only the best sociological reader of Kenneth Burke to date, but quite possibly (and indeed for this reason) the best reader of Kenneth Burke thus far.

Wade Kenny, Mount Saint Vincent University