Reading Castaneda: A Prologue to the Social Sciences

Carlos Castaneda’s accounts of his meeting with the Yaqui Indian magician Don Juan are well known to sociologists both in Britain and in America. Using material largely from Castaneda’s The Teachings of Don Juan, David Silverman here seeks to introduce the student of Sociology to some of the central epistemological concerns of social science. First published in 1975, the title assumes no previous knowledge of Castaneda but instead uses his work as a springboard to wider issues, in particular making sense of our reality and understanding each other by using language and communication. This is an interesting reissue, which will be of particular value to students of the sociology of language and communication, as well as Communication Studies more generally.