An up-to-date examination of what used to be called the mind-body problem.
Eagleman (Neuroscience/Baylor Coll. of Medicine; Sum: Forty Tales from the Afterlives, 2009) makes the point that our sense of ourselves as coherent, free-standing personalities is at odds with the most basic findings about the workings of the human brain, an organ so complex that an objective description of it sounds hyperbolic. Instinct, unconscious impulses, automatic systems, emotion and a dozen other forces, most of which we aren’t even aware of, affect every thought and action. The book is full of startling examples; split-brain research, for example, shows how the two halves of a mind can be completely at odds, with neither being aware of what the other experiences. Nor are those of us with “whole” brains and a complete set of senses necessarily experiencing the world “as it really is.” For example, other animals experience a different part of the visual spectrum, or can detect sounds and odors we have no awareness of. A significant segment of the population—about 15 percent of women—sees colors the rest of us can’t. Our brains work differently when learning a skill and after it’s become second nature – it’s one thing to drive to a new place, another to drive a familiar route, and our brains work much harder doing the former than the latter, when we can go on “automatic pilot.” There are lessons to be learned from various mental disorders, as well. Victims of strokes affecting certain parts of the brain may claim that they are operating at full capacity when they are clearly not; one former Supreme Court justice was forced to retire after displaying these symptoms. Eagleman has a wealth of such observations, backed up with case studies, bits of pop culture, literary references and historic examples. A book that will leave you looking at yourself—and the world—differently.
Pub Date: May 31, 2011
ISBN: 978-0-307-37733-3
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Pantheon
Review Posted Online: April 5, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2011
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Had he more simply explained the flaws and virtues of the various bridge designs, he would have succeeded not only in...
A great idea: The story behind the Brooklyn Bridge, Golden Gate, and a score of other marvels of late-19th and 20th century engineering genius.
If only Petroski (The Pencil, 1990; The Evolution of Useful Things, 1992) had spared some of the detail and added more diagrams to illustrate basic principles and controversies. Indeed, civil engineering was the daughter of the Industrial Revolution, an empirical science evolved to meet the needs of rapid transport by rail and internal combustion engine. It was by no means certain that designs for longer and longer spans and higher and higher towers, using newfangled raw steel and concrete materials instead of masonry, would literally hold up. And failures there were. Cantilevered bridges were out following the collapse of a bridge in Scotland; suspension bridges had to fight their way back to respectability after "Galloping Gertie" the Tacoma Narrows Bridgetorsioned itself to death in high wind. But it is the people Petroski cares about: the engineer-dreamers whose names, except perhaps for the Roeblings of Brooklyn Bridge fame, are unknown. So his chapters center on half a dozen greats: men like James Eads, who bridged the Mississippi; Gustav Lindenthal (New York's Hell Gate); Othmar Ammann (the George Washington Bridge); and David Steinman (Marcinac Bridge), the names in parentheses only the best known of their contributions. They, their partners and rivals, the politicians, bankers, and public interest groups, the construction workers and the general public animate the tales that Petroski tells. They are part of his ongoing crusade to celebrate engineersin this case a particularly ardent, outspoken, and ambitious lot who truly dreamed of spanning the world. To his credit, Petroski paints his heroes' flaws as well as their virtues.
Had he more simply explained the flaws and virtues of the various bridge designs, he would have succeeded not only in honoring engineers but also the science of engineering.Pub Date: Sept. 19, 1995
ISBN: 0-679-43939-0
Page Count: 496
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 1995
A four-hankie story about two Princeton University bachelor professors and the dogs who adopt them. When a forlorn-looking, scrawny female takes up residence under an old shed in Pitcher's backyard and then proceeds to deliver seven bouncing puppies, the philosophy professor (since retired) falls instantly in love, though it takes tremendous effort and patience on his part to both win the trust of the terrified stray and to convince his housemate, music professor Ed Cone, that the benefits of dog ownership outweigh the inconveniences. After finding homes for six of the pups, the professors adopt the mother, dubbed Lupa, and her son Remus and spend the next 17 years as a close-knit family. Slowly but surely, the dogs become an intrinsic part of their livesaccompanying them on visits to friends and traveling with them wherever they go. Pitcher and Cone are so devoted to their charges that, in deference to Lupa's delicate nature, they even opt to sail to France on the QE II for a vacation rather than expose the nervous dog to the rigors of airplane flight. Perhaps what's most touching in this memoir is Pitcher's candidness about his past psychological problems (he spent nine years in therapy partly because of his ``crippling inability to feel and express genuine affection and tenderness'' and his difficulty confronting death) and the resolution of those problems through the almost transcendent love, compassion, and respect he has for his canine companions. The final chapters of the book, relating the old-age infirmities and, finally, the passing of Lupa and Remus, are at times almost unbearably moving. With a touch of Cleveland Armory and Peter Gethers, this work, charmingly illustrated by Tom George, surely deserves its own place in the pet literature spotlight. (photos, not seen)
Pub Date: Oct. 5, 1995
ISBN: 0-525-94050-2
Page Count: 112
Publisher: Dutton
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 1995
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