An Anthropologist on Mars

An Anthropologist on Mars
AuthorOliver Sacks
LanguageEnglish
GenreEssays, Science, Medicine, Neurology
PublisherAlfred A. Knopf
Publication date
February 7, 1995
Publication placeUnited States
Media typePrint (Hardcover and Paperback) and Audio Cassette
Pages327 (First Edition)
ISBN0-679-43785-1 (First Edition)
OCLC30810706
616.8 20
LC ClassRC351 .S1948 1995
Preceded bySeeing Voices (1989) 
Followed byThe Island of the Colorblind (1997) 

An Anthropologist on Mars: Seven Paradoxical Tales is a 1995 book by neurologist Oliver Sacks consisting of seven medical case histories of individuals with neurological conditions such as autism and Tourette syndrome. An Anthropologist on Mars follows up on many of the themes Sacks explored in his 1985 book, The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat, but here the essays are significantly longer and Sacks has more of an opportunity to discuss each subject with more depth and to explore historical case studies of patients with similar symptoms. In addition, Sacks studies his patients outside the hospital, often traveling considerable distances to interact with his subjects in their own environments. Sacks concludes that "defects, disorders, [and] diseases... can play a paradoxical role, by bringing out latent powers, developments, evolutions, forms of life that might never be seen, or even be imaginable, in their absence" (p. xvi).