A satisfying investigation of the mechanics of heroism.
A personal quest to become more mindful takes science writer Svoboda on a search for outstanding examples of heroism and how they relate to altruism.
The author chronicles her interview with psychologist Philip Zimbardo, architect of the famous Stanford Prison Experiment, which showed how ordinary students could be induced to become sadistic under certain circumstances. Now emeritus, he is investigating how ordinary people become heroes—and not only soldiers and firefighters. Svoboda notes former sky-diving instructor Dave Hartsock. During a sky dive with a passenger, her parachute malfunctioned, and he made a split-second decision to risk almost certain death by using his body to shield her. Despite being confined to a wheelchair, Hartsock (now a lifestyle coach) says that he gets great satisfaction from his choice. He believes that such sacrifices may correlate to a lifestyle commitment to service. Svoboda also examines a five-year longevity study of older volunteers who showed a 60 percent reduction in the death rate of individuals regularly involved in charitable activities. She cites behavioral economist Paul Zak, whose research establishes an association between the pleasurable release of oxytocin and empathic moral behavior in general. The author visited laboratories where neuroscientists are using brain scans in an attempt to pinpoint what happens in the brain when people contemplate making sacrifices to help others. She participated in an experiment that showed a reward center in her brain lighting up when she imagined making charitable decisions. A visit to a charter high school introduced her to a pilot program developed by Zimbardo to train students to become “every-day heroes” by examining their values. Ordinary acts of goodwill are pleasurable and “enhance our ability to step up” should the need arise for “the kind of heroic choice that involves a high level of personal sacrifice.”
A satisfying investigation of the mechanics of heroism.Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2013
ISBN: 978-1-59184-528-7
Page Count: 256
Publisher: Current
Review Posted Online: June 16, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2013
BOOK REVIEW
Bernstein and Woodward, the two Washington Post journalists who broke the Big Story, tell how they did it by old fashioned seat-of-the-pants reporting — in other words, lots of intuition and a thick stack of phone numbers. They've saved a few scoops for the occasion, the biggest being the name of their early inside source, the "sacrificial lamb" H**h Sl**n. But Washingtonians who talked will be most surprised by the admission that their rumored contacts in the FBI and elsewhere never existed; many who were telephoned for "confirmation" were revealing more than they realized. The real drama, and there's plenty of it, lies in the private-eye tactics employed by Bernstein and Woodward (they refer to themselves in the third person, strictly on a last name basis). The centerpiece of their own covert operation was an unnamed high government source they call Deep Throat, with whom Woodward arranged secret meetings by positioning the potted palm on his balcony and through codes scribbled in his morning newspaper. Woodward's wee hours meetings with Deep Throat in an underground parking garage are sheer cinema: we can just see Robert Redford (it has to be Robert Redford) watching warily for muggers and stubbing out endless cigarettes while Deep Throat spills the inside dope about the plumbers. Then too, they amass enough seamy detail to fascinate even the most avid Watergate wallower — what a drunken and abusive Mitchell threatened to do to Post publisher Katherine Graham's tit, and more on the Segretti connection — including the activities of a USC campus political group known as the Ratfuckers whose former members served as a recruiting pool for the Nixon White House. As the scandal goes public and out of their hands Bernstein and Woodward seem as stunned as the rest of us at where their search for the "head ratfucker" has led. You have to agree with what their City Editor Barry Sussman realized way back in the beginning — "We've never had a story like this. Just never."
Pub Date: June 18, 1974
ISBN: 0671894412
Page Count: 372
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: Oct. 10, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 1974
Less a sequel than an addendum, the book offers a close-up view of the Oval Office in its darkest hour.
Four decades after Watergate shook America, journalist Woodward (The Price of Politics, 2012, etc.) returns to the scandal to profile Alexander Butterfield, the Richard Nixon aide who revealed the existence of the Oval Office tapes and effectively toppled the presidency.
Of all the candidates to work in the White House, Butterfield was a bizarre choice. He was an Air Force colonel and wanted to serve in Vietnam. By happenstance, his colleague H.R. Haldeman helped Butterfield land a job in the Nixon administration. For three years, Butterfield worked closely with the president, taking on high-level tasks and even supervising the installation of Nixon’s infamous recording system. The writing here is pure Woodward: a visual, dialogue-heavy, blow-by-blow account of Butterfield’s tenure. The author uses his long interviews with Butterfield to re-create detailed scenes, which reveal the petty power plays of America’s most powerful men. Yet the book is a surprisingly funny read. Butterfield is passive, sensitive, and dutiful, the very opposite of Nixon, who lets loose a constant stream of curses, insults, and nonsensical bluster. Years later, Butterfield seems conflicted about his role in such an eccentric presidency. “I’m not trying to be a Boy Scout and tell you I did it because it was the right thing to do,” Butterfield concedes. It is curious to see Woodward revisit an affair that now feels distantly historical, but the author does his best to make the story feel urgent and suspenseful. When Butterfield admitted to the Senate Select Committee that he knew about the listening devices, he felt its significance. “It seemed to Butterfield there was absolute silence and no one moved,” writes Woodward. “They were still and quiet as if they were witnessing a hinge of history slowly swinging open….It was as if a bare 10,000 volt cable was running through the room, and suddenly everyone touched it at once.”
Less a sequel than an addendum, the book offers a close-up view of the Oval Office in its darkest hour.Pub Date: Oct. 13, 2015
ISBN: 978-1-5011-1644-5
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: Oct. 20, 2015
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