Ackerman, a poet, New Yorker writer, and author of On Extended Wings (1985), offers a luscious tribute to the joys of corporeality. Eager to appear sophisticated and civilized, modem-day human beings tend to ignore the physical world—so claims Ackerman as she sets out to re-create in her uniquely luxuriant prose the experiences of touch, taste, hearing, vision, and smell. Eh. cased in pantyhose or three-piece suits, surrounded by smog, noise and fluorescent light, preoccupied with worldly concerns and too rushed to pay attention to outside stimuli, we miss the variations of scent in a rose garden, the flash of green in the sky just after sunset, the sensations offered by a whiff of eucalyptus at a corner flower stall. Certainly no more appropriate writer exists than this romantic stylist to snap us back to our mammalian origins, a feat achieved as she guides us through a Manhattan, perfume laboratory, an aromatic massage session, and a delicious high-protein lunch designed to stimulate the mind. Accompanying widely known facts regarding the workings of our nose, eyes, ears, and mouth are such intriguing tidbits as: ginger fights motion sickness better than Dramamine; Charles Dickens instantly reexperienced the anguish of his early years whenever he caught a whiff of a certain kind of paste; and "Caesar," "kaiser," and "tsar" all mean "long-haired," which means virile. Though her enthusiasm does occasionally exceed reasonable bounds ("Symbolic of life, hair bolts from our head") and her emotionality can veer toward the maudlin (inhaling the scene of a eucalyptus branch, she bursts into tears), Ackerman's intentions are honorable—and her passion for the world around her is contagious.
Pub Date: June 1, 1990
ISBN: 0679735666
Page Count: 356
Publisher: Random House
Review Posted Online: May 14, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 1990
An attempt to bridge the gap between spiritual and scientific inquiries into the nature and origins of the universe, from a physics professor at Dartmouth. Actually, Gleiser believes that the studies of cosmologists such as himself are spiritual; it's just that scientists seek to prove their intuitions, rather than to rely on faith. He finds the notion that scientists are cold and objective, rather than passionate, to be ludicrous and even offensive, and his accounts of the work of Einstein, Copernicus, and Newton wonderfully personalize the essentially spiritual quests these men made on their paths to discoveries with reproducible results. Einstein spoke of a ``cosmic religious feeling,'' for instance. To go back a long way indeed, the Pythagoreans were a monastic order of sorts, their mathematical discoveries a way of proving order in the universe and, to their minds, a divine intelligence. Sometimes, Gleiser is hard pressed to find much spirituality at work—in the endeavors of Niels Bohr, for instance. Nonetheless, the spirituality that is evident in the groundbreaking work of many great scientists is convincingly illuminated by Gleiser in this rather unique overview. He begins with a survey of various creation myths, from Hopi to Zoroastrian to Christian, and shows their links to the early astronomy of the Babylonians and Greeks. He devotes a great deal of attention to the Greeks, then moves on to the ideas of the ``pious heretic,'' Galileo; the origins and intent of Newton's laws of motion; the discovery of the laws of thermodynamics; and the turbulent discoveries of the modern age, beginning with Einstein and progressing through quantum physics and on to the ramifications of the uncertainty principle. Even if one cares little for Gleiser's spiritual asides, this is an exceptionally clear summary of 2,500 years of science and a fascinating account of the ways in which it often does intersect with spiritual beliefs. (30 b&w drawings, not seen)
Pub Date: Nov. 17, 1997
ISBN: 0-525-94112-6
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Dutton
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 1997
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
One of the founders of population genetics describes his life's work and its scientific context in this clear and accessible book, cowritten with his son Francesco. Luigi Cavalli-Sforza (Genetics/Stanford Univ. Medical School), a true polymath, combines the insights of anthropological fieldwork, historical linguistics, and molecular biology to create a history of human evolution, both biological and cultural. Having visited African pygmies in their villages and joined them on their hunting expeditions, he can present the essence of hunter-gatherer societies in a way no theoretician can match. But his field trips also provided him with blood samples for laboratory analysis, which reveals the complex relationships of the human species over its worldwide range. After a quick lesson in the basics of inheritance and genetics, Cavalli-Sforza gives the evidence for the African origin of modern human beings (including the often misinterpreted ``African Eve'' theory) and for the spread of humankind out of our ancestral home. The author was instrumental in reversing prevailing anthropological dogma during the postWW II era; the spread of agriculture, he showed, was a mass population movement, not simply the transmission of the new technology to new users. The story told here is often complex: Several mappings of the distribution of blood types across Europe reveal different patterns of migration. (A particularly fascinating correlation between the Rh- blood type and the Basque language implies that the Basques were among the earliest settlers of Europe.) At the same time, the author points out the genetic triviality of superficial racial distinctions on which bigots and demagogues place such importance. The translation occasionally misfires in rendering scientific terms, but is generally smooth and clear. An excellent book on human origins and modern genetics, as well as an entertaining self-portrait by a leading figure in the study of both. (56 b&w illustrations)
Pub Date: Jan. 1, 1995
ISBN: 0-201-40755-8
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Addison-Wesley
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 1994
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