Take the focus of People magazine, add a bit of old-fashioned Gesell or Speck, sprinkle with some trendy phrases on mid-life crises, etc., and you have the essence of Morris' latest. The indefatigable popularizer has decided to celebrate each and every year of human life, from 0 to 100-plus—devoting a full spread to each, and describing growth and development, life expectancy, rites-of-passage and other appropriate psycho/physiological events. There follows a catalogue of who, famous or infamous, suffered misfortune or achieved fame during that particular year: little Mozart playing the harpsichord at three, not to mention Thomas Macaulay voraciously reading, and John Stuart Mill learning Greek. Lots of film stars, TV folk, royalty, robbers, and romancers adorn the pages both in text and pictures. The approach clearly reveals Morris to be a moralizer—intoning on the fate of early misfortune (if not overcome, of course) and recording all those sins. We learn that Baudelaire ("the French poet") died from VD in his mother's arms, having lived a life of notoriety, of hashish and opium, and "offenses against public morality." Calamity Jane is quickly identified as a prostitute. Sirhan Sirhan may not really have killed Robert Kennedy. (The Morris interpretation of history is singular, to say the least.) Natalie Wood, barely cold in her grave, comes up for mention unaccountably often. Queen Anne is the "dull, dowdy and devout monarch" who died at 49. The last entry is Shigechiyo Izumi of Japan: "recognized"—by whom?—"as the oldest man who ever lived" (and who is still living). There follow two pages of concluding remarks that Morris declares to be contradictory: there are similarities at all ages, but the human population is vastly varied. Morris' recipe for ripe old age? An amalgam of good parents, good genes, good sense, good exercise. (Not dull, conscientious jogging or other boring pursuits.) Campy enough to be a smashing addition to the non-book shelf.
Pub Date: March 1, 1983
ISBN: N/A
Page Count: -
Publisher: Viking
Review Posted Online: May 21, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 1983
Striking research showing the immense complexity of ordinary thought and revealing the identities of the gatekeepers in our...
A psychologist and Nobel Prize winner summarizes and synthesizes the recent decades of research on intuition and systematic thinking.
The author of several scholarly texts, Kahneman (Emeritus Psychology and Public Affairs/Princeton Univ.) now offers general readers not just the findings of psychological research but also a better understanding of how research questions arise and how scholars systematically frame and answer them. He begins with the distinction between System 1 and System 2 mental operations, the former referring to quick, automatic thought, the latter to more effortful, overt thinking. We rely heavily, writes, on System 1, resorting to the higher-energy System 2 only when we need or want to. Kahneman continually refers to System 2 as “lazy”: We don’t want to think rigorously about something. The author then explores the nuances of our two-system minds, showing how they perform in various situations. Psychological experiments have repeatedly revealed that our intuitions are generally wrong, that our assessments are based on biases and that our System 1 hates doubt and despises ambiguity. Kahneman largely avoids jargon; when he does use some (“heuristics,” for example), he argues that such terms really ought to join our everyday vocabulary. He reviews many fundamental concepts in psychology and statistics (regression to the mean, the narrative fallacy, the optimistic bias), showing how they relate to his overall concerns about how we think and why we make the decisions that we do. Some of the later chapters (dealing with risk-taking and statistics and probabilities) are denser than others (some readers may resent such demands on System 2!), but the passages that deal with the economic and political implications of the research are gripping.
Striking research showing the immense complexity of ordinary thought and revealing the identities of the gatekeepers in our minds.Pub Date: Nov. 1, 2011
ISBN: 978-0-374-27563-1
Page Count: 512
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Review Posted Online: Sept. 3, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2011
BOOK REVIEW
IN THE NEWS
IN THE NEWS
This autobiography might almost be said to supply the roots to Wright's famous novel, Native Son.
It is a grim record, disturbing, the story of how — in one boy's life — the seeds of hate and distrust and race riots were planted. Wright was born to poverty and hardship in the deep south; his father deserted his mother, and circumstances and illness drove the little family from place to place, from degradation to degradation. And always, there was the thread of fear and hate and suspicion and discrimination — of white set against black — of black set against Jew — of intolerance. Driven to deceit, to dishonesty, ambition thwarted, motives impugned, Wright struggled against the tide, put by a tiny sum to move on, finally got to Chicago, and there — still against odds — pulled himself up, acquired some education through reading, allied himself with the Communists — only to be thrust out for non-conformity — and wrote continually. The whole tragedy of a race seems dramatized in this record; it is virtually unrelieved by any vestige of human tenderness, or humor; there are no bright spots. And yet it rings true. It is an unfinished story of a problem that has still to be met.
Perhaps this will force home unpalatable facts of a submerged minority, a problem far from being faced.
Pub Date: Feb. 28, 1945
ISBN: 0061130249
Page Count: 450
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: Oct. 7, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 1945
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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