A sympathetic though not rigorously scientific exploration of adult sibling relationships, by Klagsbrun (Married People, 1985, etc.). Klagsbrun interviewed 122 men and women about their ties with their sibling or siblings. In each case, every sibling in a subject's family was interviewed, usually face to face and for four or five hours. Further data were gathered through a questionnaire given to 208 women and 64 men at three business firms in cities in the Northeast and Midwest—clearly not a random sample, but one that Klagsbrun believes represents a cross section of society. The territory she has chosen to explore includes relationships of same-sex and opposite-sex siblings; the special cases of twins, stepsibs, half-sibs, and adopted siblings; the effects of birth order and favoritism; the problems of incest and the illness and/or death of a sibling; and the impact of the sibling bond on other relationships. The vastness of the topic and the nature of the investigation make conclusions difficult, and Klagsbrun seems content to settle for life stories that readers may identify with and learn from. There are occasional references to studies of sibling relationships and allusions to fictional characters and to real-life prominent brothers or sisters, but the heart of the book consists of the disclosures Klagsbrun elicits in her skillfully conducted interviews. One man attributes his life of solitude and misery to the lasting shame of his older sister's sexual promiscuity; a middle-aged executive still fights for control over his gay- activist younger brother; two adult sisters strive to overcome the barrier of parental favoritism. Klagsbrun, who acknowledges the importance of the sibling bond in her own life, would clearly like to see reconciliations between siblings, and she offers her own thoughts on how to achieve this. Too broad to be deep, but sometimes illuminating and always engaging.
Pub Date: Aug. 17, 1992
ISBN: 0-553-08841-6
Page Count: 448
Publisher: Bantam
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 1992
BOOK REVIEW
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
If the authors are serious, this is a silly, distasteful book. If they are not, it’s a brilliant satire.
The authors have created a sort of anti-Book of Virtues in this encyclopedic compendium of the ways and means of power.
Everyone wants power and everyone is in a constant duplicitous game to gain more power at the expense of others, according to Greene, a screenwriter and former editor at Esquire (Elffers, a book packager, designed the volume, with its attractive marginalia). We live today as courtiers once did in royal courts: we must appear civil while attempting to crush all those around us. This power game can be played well or poorly, and in these 48 laws culled from the history and wisdom of the world’s greatest power players are the rules that must be followed to win. These laws boil down to being as ruthless, selfish, manipulative, and deceitful as possible. Each law, however, gets its own chapter: “Conceal Your Intentions,” “Always Say Less Than Necessary,” “Pose as a Friend, Work as a Spy,” and so on. Each chapter is conveniently broken down into sections on what happened to those who transgressed or observed the particular law, the key elements in this law, and ways to defensively reverse this law when it’s used against you. Quotations in the margins amplify the lesson being taught. While compelling in the way an auto accident might be, the book is simply nonsense. Rules often contradict each other. We are told, for instance, to “be conspicuous at all cost,” then told to “behave like others.” More seriously, Greene never really defines “power,” and he merely asserts, rather than offers evidence for, the Hobbesian world of all against all in which he insists we live. The world may be like this at times, but often it isn’t. To ask why this is so would be a far more useful project.
If the authors are serious, this is a silly, distasteful book. If they are not, it’s a brilliant satire.Pub Date: Sept. 1, 1998
ISBN: 0-670-88146-5
Page Count: 430
Publisher: Viking
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 1998
BOOK REVIEW
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