Fascinating and important material, though it deserves better exposition.
A leading neurologist and critically praised science writer (The Feeling of What Happens, 1999, etc.) argues that research on human emotions supports the 17th-century philosopher’s conclusions about the mind-body problem.
Damasio (Neurology/Univ. of Iowa Medical Center) begins by describing his visit to Spinoza's home and grave in the Hague. Spinoza's ideas, the author reminds us, were so radical that they were suppressed for decades after his death in 1677, though they survived to be picked up by Enlightenment thinkers and to influence many modern scientists. At the center of his philosophy was the assertion that the mind, and by implication the soul, was not separate from the body but intimately connected to it. At this point, Damasio launches into a detailed summary of the neurological evidence that emotions and feelings, which he carefully distinguishes, arise directly from the brain's imaging of the body’s physical states. Studies of patients with injuries to discrete areas of the brain indicate that specific sites are responsible for specific emotional states, he notes. Moreover, the chemical and physical events leading to feelings can often be traced with considerable accuracy. Unfortunately, the author’s account of these potentially revolutionary investigations is highly abstract and couched in reader-unfriendly jargon. The evidence seems to be that even such exalted emotions as altruism and civic responsibility can be accounted for by physical processes based in the evolutionary needs of the human organism to survive and reproduce. The feeling of contentment that follows ethical behavior is similar to those called up by acts that directly benefit the organism. Having made these points, the narrative returns to an account of Spinoza's life, with particular emphasis on his estrangement from the Portuguese Sephardic community in the Netherlands and his impact on later thinkers. The Spinoza sections flow smoothly; this would have been far more valuable if the neurological sections were as clear and engaging. Even so, it will reward close study.
Fascinating and important material, though it deserves better exposition.Pub Date: Feb. 3, 2003
ISBN: 0-15-100557-5
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Harcourt
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2002
BOOK REVIEW
Not light reading but essential for policymakers—and highly recommended for the 40 million people who rely on the Great...
An alarming account of the “slow-motion catastrophe” facing the world’s largest freshwater system.
Based on 13 years of reporting for the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, this exhaustively detailed examination of the Great Lakes reveals the extent to which this 94,000-square-mile natural resource has been exploited for two centuries. The main culprits have been “over-fishing, over-polluting, and over-prioritizing navigation,” writes Egan, winner of the J. Anthony Lukas Work-in-Progress Award. Combining scientific details, the stories of researchers investigating ecological crises, and interviews with people who live and work along the lakes, the author crafts an absorbing narrative of science and human folly. The St. Lawrence Seaway, a system of locks, canals, and channels leading to the Atlantic Ocean, which allows “noxious species” from foreign ports to enter the lakes through ballast water dumped by freighters, has been a central player. Biologically contaminated ballast water is “the worst kind of pollution,” writes Egan. “It breeds.” As a result, mussels and other invasive species have been devastating the ecosystem and traveling across the country to wreak harm in the West. At the same time, farm-fertilizer runoff has helped create “massive seasonal toxic algae blooms that are turning [Lake] Erie’s water into something that seems impossible for a sea of its size: poison.” The blooms contain “the seeds of a natural and public health disaster.” While lengthy and often highly technical, Egan’s sections on frustrating attempts to engineer the lakes by introducing predator fish species underscore the complexity of the challenge. The author also covers the threats posed by climate change and attempts by outsiders to divert lake waters for profit. He notes that the political will is lacking to reduce farm runoffs. The lakes could “heal on their own,” if protected from new invasions and if the fish and mussels already present “find a new ecological balance.”
Not light reading but essential for policymakers—and highly recommended for the 40 million people who rely on the Great Lakes for drinking water.Pub Date: March 7, 2017
ISBN: 978-0-393-24643-8
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Norton
Review Posted Online: Jan. 3, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2017
BOOK REVIEW
It took 14 years to build and it cost 15 million dollars and the lives of 20 workmen. Like the Atlantic cable and the Suez Canal it was a gigantic embodiment in steel and concrete of the Age of Enterprise. McCullough's outsized biography of the bridge attempts to capture in one majestic sweep the full glory of the achievement but the story sags mightily in the middle. True, the Roeblings, father and son who served successively as Chief Engineer, are cast in a heroic mold. True, too, the vital statistics of the bridge are formidable. But despite diligent efforts by the author the details of the construction work — from sinking the caissons, to underground blasting, stringing of cables and pouring of cement — will crush the determination of all but the most indomitable reader. To make matters worse, McCullough dutifully struggles through the administrative history of the Brooklyn Bridge Company which financed and contracted for the project with the help of the Tweed Machine and various Brooklyn bosses who profited handsomely amid continuous allegations of kickbacks and mismanagement of funds. He succeeds in evoking the venality and crass materialism of the epoch but once again the details — like the 3,515 miles of steel wire in each cable — are tiresome and ultimately entangling. Workmanlike and thorough though it is, McCullough's history of the bridge has more bulk than stature.
Pub Date: Oct. 1, 1972
ISBN: 0743217373
Page Count: 652
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: Oct. 12, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 1972
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