Here is Passages II, an upbeat, fact-filled, people-rich, but ultimately unsatisfying sequel to the 1976 bestseller. Sheehy's earlier Passages borrowed from Erik Erikson and Daniel Levinson of Yale to popularize the theory that the lives of adults as well as children are marked by stages of development, such as the Trying Twenties and Catch-30, until age 50, when it's smooth sailing. Well, Sheehy is in her 50s now and encountering some rough waters, so she's added a few more stagesthe Flaming Fifties, the Uninhibited Eightiesto her earlier scenario. Moreover, she declares, ``There is a revolution in the life cycle.'' Puberty arrives sooner, and adolescence lasts longer. ``First Adulthood'' begins around 30, segueing into ``Second Adulthood,'' which lasts from about ages 45 to 85. During that time, women struggle with menopauseand perhaps, she suggests provocatively, so do men. Both reframe their lives, women pushing the envelope on their careers and men often confronting corporate downsizing. Age 50 is also fraught with crises of mortality and meaning, giving passage to the Serene Sixties and Sage Seventies. Throughout are rich interviews with both working class and white collar/professional men and women copingnot always successfullywith the stresses of growing older. The flaw in this book lies in the very reason Sheehy wrote it. Labeling generations (``Silent,'' ``Vietnam,'' ``Endangered'') and relabeling Erikson's Age of Generativity as the Age of Integrity mask the fact that life cycle changes are happening so fast that it's too soon to develop a perspective. Sheehy's confidence in the efficacy of exercise, a healthy lifestyle, and an optimistic attitude to hold back the effects of aging is well placed. But these constitute only one step in combating society's aversion to people with wrinkles and walkers, to say nothing of the millions of elderly living below the poverty line. A mix of inventive speculation and solid informationon impotence and menopause among the latterbut its impact is diluted by horoscope-like predictions and (though Sheehy surveyed thousands of people) a penchant for presenting anecdote as evidence. (Author tour)
Pub Date: June 21, 1995
ISBN: 0-394-58913-0
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Random House
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 1995
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
Readers unfamiliar with the anecdotal material Greene presents may find interesting avenues to pursue, but they should...
Greene (The 33 Strategies of War, 2007, etc.) believes that genius can be learned if we pay attention and reject social conformity.
The author suggests that our emergence as a species with stereoscopic, frontal vision and sophisticated hand-eye coordination gave us an advantage over earlier humans and primates because it allowed us to contemplate a situation and ponder alternatives for action. This, along with the advantages conferred by mirror neurons, which allow us to intuit what others may be thinking, contributed to our ability to learn, pass on inventions to future generations and improve our problem-solving ability. Throughout most of human history, we were hunter-gatherers, and our brains are engineered accordingly. The author has a jaundiced view of our modern technological society, which, he writes, encourages quick, rash judgments. We fail to spend the time needed to develop thorough mastery of a subject. Greene writes that every human is “born unique,” with specific potential that we can develop if we listen to our inner voice. He offers many interesting but tendentious examples to illustrate his theory, including Einstein, Darwin, Mozart and Temple Grandin. In the case of Darwin, Greene ignores the formative intellectual influences that shaped his thought, including the discovery of geological evolution with which he was familiar before his famous voyage. The author uses Grandin's struggle to overcome autistic social handicaps as a model for the necessity for everyone to create a deceptive social mask.
Readers unfamiliar with the anecdotal material Greene presents may find interesting avenues to pursue, but they should beware of the author's quirky, sometimes misleading brush-stroke characterizations.Pub Date: Nov. 13, 2012
ISBN: 978-0-670-02496-4
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Viking
Review Posted Online: Sept. 12, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 2012
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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