Background
Philip H. Herbst was born on June 1, 1944, in Peoria, Illinois, United States. He is a son of Eugene S. Herbst and Mary Herbst (maiden name David).
anthropologist editor educator author
Philip H. Herbst was born on June 1, 1944, in Peoria, Illinois, United States. He is a son of Eugene S. Herbst and Mary Herbst (maiden name David).
Philip H. Herbst studied at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. He graduated in 1966 with a Bachelor of Arts degree in sociology. Ten years later, he earned his Ph. D. in cultural anthropology from Cornell University.
The start of Philip H. Herbst’s career can be counted from the anthropological fieldwork in Suva, Fiji he did from 1969 to 1970 within the National Institutes of Health. A year later, he joined the staff of the State University of New York College in Potsdam where he had served as an instructor in anthropology for three years. After a year at Follett Corporation and the American Publishers Corporation in a capacity of educational sales representative New England, Herbst became an educational consultant at the Chicago Daily News and the Chicago Sun-Times. Beginning in 1979, the anthropologist spent some time serving as a freelance editor.
The experience he received helped him to get a post of a product development editor at American Society of Clinical Pathologists Press where he served from 1981 to 1985. The five following years, Herbst spent editing projects for such publishing companies as Scott, Foresman/ Little, Brown.
In 1990, he again tried his hand as an educator serving as an instructor in anthropology at the New Trier Extension, Wilmette, Illinois. The same year, the author joined the staff of Northwestern University in Evanston where he had served as a visiting scholar in anthropology for a couple of years. From 1995 to 1996, Herbst led a course of English as a second language at Harold Washington College, Chicago, and for one more year at Evanston Township High School. In 1999, he served as a visiting scholar in gender studies at Northwestern University.
The first reference book of Philip H. Herbst, ‘The Multicultural Dictionary: A Usage Guide to Ethnic and Racial Words’, was published in 1993. It was followed by three more publications.
In addition to his own writings, Herbst has contributed articles and reviews for many periodicals, including Oceans, Contemporary Times, Booklist, Book Jacket, and Copy Editor.
Philip H. Herbst is an accomplished anthropologist and researcher. In his reference books exploring language in different aspects of our life, including ‘The Color of Words: An Encyclopaedic Dictionary of Ethnic Bias in the United States’, ‘Wimmin, Wimps & Wallflowers: An Encyclopaedic Dictionary of Gender and Sexual Orientation Bias in the United States’, and ‘Talking Terrorism: a Dictionary of the Loaded Language of Political Violence’, Herbst managed to dispel the prejudices about ethnic-racial system in our society.
(The dictionary defines, traces, and explains the loaded, ...)
2002Quotations: "I write because I love language and ideas. Having enjoyed and profited from the labors of others for so long, I felt the need to return something, however small, to our body of printed work. Writing reference books is different from writing other kinds of books; it is heavier on the research and organization side, perhaps easier on the imagination, but never easy."
