Were Thomas Berger and H. L. Davis thought to be underappreciated?
Thomas Berger (novelist) Thomas Louis Berger (July 20, 1924 – July 13, 2014) was an American novelist. Probably best known for his picaresque novel "Little Big Man" and the subsequent film by Arthur Penn, Berger explored and manipulated many genres of fiction throughout his career, including the crime novel, the hard-boiled detective story, science fiction, the utopian novel, plus re-workings of classical mythology, Arthurian legend, and the survival adventure. Berger's biting wit led many reviewers to refer to him as a satirist or "comic" novelist, descriptions he preferred to reject. His admirers often bemoaned that his talent and achievement were under-appreciated, in view of his versatility across many forms of fiction, his precise use of language, and his probing intelligence.
Joseph Berger (sociologist) Joseph Berger (born 1924) is an American sociologist and social psychologist best known for co-founding expectation states theory. Expectation states theory explains how individuals use social information about one another (such as race, gender, or specific skills) to create informal status hierarchies in small groups. Researchers have used this program to develop interventions that counteract the disadvantages faced most notably by black students in the classroom and women leaders in the workplace. Social scientists have also applied this work to study hiring bias against mothers and discrimination against loan applicants among other topics.