Smith writes clearly for the lay reader, so a background in the sciences is not required—though a strong stomach is.
The roots of war lie in the evolutionary history of our species, according to arguments forcefully presented here by the director of the University of New England’s Institute for Cognitive Science and Evolutionary Psychology.
Smith (Philosophy/Univ. of New England; Why We Lie: The Evolutionary Roots of Deception and the Unconscious Mind, 2004) draws on anthropology, psychology, archeology and philosophy to speculate about the link between violent conflict and human nature. He posits that, like chimpanzees today, early hominids probably formed small hunting bands. Skills first used against predators evolved into organized raiding parties against rival communities; this was the first step in the evolution of warfare. Those able to kill their neighbors and capture their resources flourished, passing on their warlike nature to future generations. However, once humans mastered conceptual thought and recognized that we are all members of a single species, the inhibition against killing same-group members was activated. The way we overcome this aversion to killing other human beings, Smith asserts, is by persuading ourselves that they are not truly human. This dehumanization of the enemy can be accomplished by demonizing them as monsters; by viewing them as prey to be hunted down and killed; or by portraying them as disease-carrying vermin that must be exterminated. Smith provides dozens of examples of these mindsets from ancient Greece to the present day. Some are blatant wartime propaganda (for example, posters depicting the enemy as a nonhuman predator), but others are simply quotes from soldiers recounting their attitudes and actions in the field. The best hope of stopping war, avers the author, is ending the self-deception that allows us to see others as not human.
Smith writes clearly for the lay reader, so a background in the sciences is not required—though a strong stomach is.Pub Date: Aug. 1, 2007
ISBN: 978-0-312-34189-3
Page Count: 288
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2007
In seven case histories, Sacks (The Man Who Mistook His Wife Fora Hat, 1985, etc.) once again presents the bizarre both clinically and lyrically, challenging assumptions about the landscape of human reality. The fascination of Dr. Sacks's approach to neurological disorder is his attempt to empathize with patients whose realities can't be described in normal terms. He dares to wonder how pathology can shape consciousness and the concept of self. To him, a patient is not a broken machine, but an inhabitant of an unfamiliar world. And sometimes those alien worlds are more hospitable than the one we are used to. After an accident, a successful artist (referred to as Mr. I) loses the ability to experience color: Not only can't he see it, he can't dream it, remember it, or even imagine it. After a period of extreme depression and uncertainty, he comes to think of his condition as "a strange gift" that allows him to experience the physical world in a unique way. Virgil, whose sight is restored after a lifetime of blindness, is crushed by the bewilderment of vision; his brain has never learned to see, but his comfortable life as a blind person is irrevocably over. And then there is Temple Grandin, an animal-science professor and a high-functioning autistic who has only learned the rules of interpersonal relationships by memorizing them like complex math problems, though her empathy with animals is astonishing. Occasionally, Sacks provides too much technical detail — long riffs on the mechanics of vision, for instance — but these are minor distractions. (The essays have been previously published in the New Yorker and the New York Review of Books.) Readers may come to Sacks's work as voyeurs, but they will leave it with new and profound respect for the endless labyrinth of the human mind.
Pub Date: Feb. 21, 1995
ISBN: 0-679-43785-1
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 1995
Negroponte—founder of MIT's groundbreaking Media Lab—offers a brief, rambling survey of the digitization of culture that's not nearly as original as one might expect. His commentary ranges over an impressive array of subjects, from education and entertainment to art, business, and personal planning. Along the way he offers informed observations on such questions as how virtual reality will transform video games, how E- mail will affect your phone bill, how the information superhighway will put video-rental shops out of business, and how semi- intelligent ``butlers'' will help you navigate the ocean of data that will soon be pouring into your home. But this very range of subjects contributes to the book's major flaw: It's scattered and disorganized, more a collection of off-the-cuff ruminations than a useful analysis of any one of these areas (let alone all of them). Some of Negroponte's musings are striking and valuable (how the fax machine has actually hampered the development of digital communication, and how backward thinking has hamstrung high- definition television), but much of the text has a peculiarly stale smell. Do we need another assertion of the Internet's democratizing power or another thumbnail critique of our antiquated and ineffective educational system? The book's uneven tone makes it hard to tell for sure what audience Negroponte's aiming for, veering between oversimplification and clunky jargon. He drops names and introduces various relevant projects, such as the Media Lab's LEGO-Logo education program, but he provides very little description of any of them. Even the Media Lab itself gets only a sketchy paragraph-long portrait toward the very end. Negroponte brings decades of experience to his subject, but it's all for naught; his book is a muddle of retread cyber-hype and familiar predictions, relieved only by occasional flashes of original insight. (First printing of 100,000; Book-of-the-Month Club selection; author tour)
Pub Date: Feb. 3, 1995
ISBN: 0-679-43919-6
Page Count: 256
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 1995
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