Will be intriguing for readers interested in the borderlands where memoir, fiction and science overlap but is likely to...
Fernyhough (A Thousand Days of Wonder: A Scientist's Chronicle of His Daughter's Developing Mind, 2010, etc.) takes a multidisciplinary approach to explaining memory.
Using autobiographical accounts and memories elicited from his daughter and other children, the author sets out to make “the new, reconstructive account of memory” available to nonpsychologists. Fernyhough reports on experiments like the University of Ontario's studies comparing levels of complexity of verbal processing with simultaneous neuroimaging of areas of the brain showing how new and older activations are integrated. Neuropsychologists are attempting to distinguish false memories from true and have begun to identify brain regions that are involved, and parallel efforts are underway to treat memory disorders, such as amnesia. Fernyhough references case studies from the criminal justice system that have shown the fallibility of eyewitness accounts and demonstrated the suggestibility of children whose apparently “recovered” memories of sexual abuse were proven to be false. It is now widely accepted that memories are not stored in the brain but re-created in the present each time they are called upon. They are not “mental DVDs stored away in some library of the mind,” writes the author, but are shaped by subsequent events and the emotions they evoked to become autobiographical memories. Fernyhough illustrates this concept with remembered experiences taken from his own childhood and literary references from authors such as Marcel Proust, A.S. Byatt and others, which highlight the difference between memory and imagination.
Will be intriguing for readers interested in the borderlands where memoir, fiction and science overlap but is likely to frustrate readers unfamiliar with the byways of British life.Pub Date: March 19, 2013
ISBN: 978-0062237897
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Harper/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Dec. 31, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2013
BOOK REVIEW
The history of the USS Monitor, written with panache, sophisticated understanding, and attention to detail by deKay (Chronicles of the Frigate Macedonian, not reviewed). The Monitor may have been a ``doughty little Civil War ironclad,'' as deKay writes, but it was an elegantly minimalist mechanical marvel, a milestone in naval technology, with a design so original (including a revolving turret), it had 40 patentable innovations. At a time when naval strategy relied upon ships of the line—colossal square riggers with 120 guns and a crew of up to 1,200—the Monitor was a freak and a harbinger: armor-clad, steam- powered, with a mere two guns and a crew of 58. It was hardly the first of its kind—the king of Syracuse had an armor-plated vessel in the third century b.c., and Fulton's Clermont was steaming along in 1807—yet it was the right ship, in the right spot, at the right time. DeKay tells the Monitor's story with building suspense: It was the brainchild of the Swedish engineer John Ericsson, which became the best hope of the Union forces to maintain a critical blockade at Hampton Roads, Va. Finally, the author relates the wicked confrontation with the Confederate's ``awesome dark monster,'' Merrimac, another ironclad whose tale deKay sharply limns. It was a standoff at first, then the smaller Monitor exploited its opponent's unwieldiness to gain ascendancy. DeKay's tale is a richly brocaded one, serving up the sweetheart deals and political shenanigans that marked the Monitor's progress; elaborating on the rumors that flew before the epic battle like expectations before a championship heavyweight fight; bringing into play the weather and tides and most any other thing that touched upon events. This book is, simply, a little treasure. (25 b&w illustrations, not seen)
Pub Date: Nov. 13, 1997
ISBN: 0-8027-1330-0
Page Count: 240
Publisher: Walker
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 1997
BOOK REVIEW
A heap of difficult-to-read information on a relevant topic.
A textbook on “biocatastrophe” as a global public-safety issue.
Biocatastrophe is a term the authors coined for “the simultaneous degradation of the Earth’s principal ecosystems, including those inhabited by humans, as a result of the radical alteration of the Earth’s climate and natural landscapes.” This hefty text aims to explore the causes of biocatastrophe and the significance of its effects on the human and natural world. The authors put this crisis into the context of other ecological crises, like global warming, urbanization, deforestation, mass extinction and loss of ecosystem biodiversity–all of which, they write, are elements of an overarching biocatastrophe. In neatly organized chapters, the authors–who were inspired to write the book after their experiences as volunteer firemen in the 1960s and ’70s–detail the history of human ecology and how biocatastrophe fits into health, politics and economics. The text proves it is up-to-date with contextual information on the global financial crisis and evidence that two seemingly unrelated activities (the environment and the global economy) are indeed linked. Though the authors don’t explicitly describe our future, they strongly hint that Earth’s citizens will have to redefine their values and prepare to live with finite resources. To emphasize the sheer magnitude of biocatastrophe, nothing that can be defined as a military, industrial or commercial activity is spared the author’s dissection. The sentences are packed with information, and an editor would do well to streamline the writing into more digestible servings. The resources in the back of the book are ample–glossary, charts and several appendices provide sources and helpful data.
A heap of difficult-to-read information on a relevant topic.Pub Date: May 11, 2009
ISBN: 978-0-9769153-8-6
Page Count: -
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: May 23, 2010
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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