by Jesse Bering ‧ RELEASE DATE: July 3, 2012
An accessible, lively, thought-provoking book for anyone curious about what it means to be human.
Research psychologist Bering (The Belief Instinct: The Psychology of Souls, Destiny, and the Meaning of Life, 2011, etc.) tackles touchy subjects with aplomb and humor in this snappy compilation of essays.
The book is divided into eight sections, each devoted to a single theme “sampling the astounding oddities of simply being human.” These include the male reproductive anatomy, little-known facts about our bodies, brain science, sexual paraphilias, fetishes and conditions, the bodies and minds of women, homosexuality, how religion is intertwined with our psychology, and suicide and the meaning of life. Many of the essays were previously published in another form in the author’s columns in Scientific American and Slate. Each essay offers a concise, illuminating overview to such queries as “how our coveted free will articulates with our genitalia,” or whether it is “really possible for an otherwise normal, healthy person to develop a genuine sexual preference for a nonhuman species.” The author also ponders whether suicide could be an adaptive behavioral strategy or “how people’s everyday reasoning about free will, particularly in the moral domain, influences their social behavior and attitudes.” Bering admits that he doesn’t delve into every aspect or all dissenting views surrounding each topic, but he includes endnotes for readers hungry for more insight. The author adroitly weaves together previous scholarly ideas and case studies with current research on his subject matter, then tops it off with his own idiosyncratic approach. At the beginning, he writes, “let me start by offering a full disclosure: my perspective is that of a godless, gay, psychological scientist with a penchant for far-flung evolutionary theories.”
An accessible, lively, thought-provoking book for anyone curious about what it means to be human.Pub Date: July 3, 2012
ISBN: 978-0-374-53292-5
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Scientific American/Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Review Posted Online: July 12, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2012
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by Paul Kalanithi ‧ RELEASE DATE: Jan. 19, 2016
A moving meditation on mortality by a gifted writer whose dual perspectives of physician and patient provide a singular...
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A neurosurgeon with a passion for literature tragically finds his perfect subject after his diagnosis of terminal lung cancer.
Writing isn’t brain surgery, but it’s rare when someone adept at the latter is also so accomplished at the former. Searching for meaning and purpose in his life, Kalanithi pursued a doctorate in literature and had felt certain that he wouldn’t enter the field of medicine, in which his father and other members of his family excelled. “But I couldn’t let go of the question,” he writes, after realizing that his goals “didn’t quite fit in an English department.” “Where did biology, morality, literature and philosophy intersect?” So he decided to set aside his doctoral dissertation and belatedly prepare for medical school, which “would allow me a chance to find answers that are not in books, to find a different sort of sublime, to forge relationships with the suffering, and to keep following the question of what makes human life meaningful, even in the face of death and decay.” The author’s empathy undoubtedly made him an exceptional doctor, and the precision of his prose—as well as the moral purpose underscoring it—suggests that he could have written a good book on any subject he chose. Part of what makes this book so essential is the fact that it was written under a death sentence following the diagnosis that upended his life, just as he was preparing to end his residency and attract offers at the top of his profession. Kalanithi learned he might have 10 years to live or perhaps five. Should he return to neurosurgery (he could and did), or should he write (he also did)? Should he and his wife have a baby? They did, eight months before he died, which was less than two years after the original diagnosis. “The fact of death is unsettling,” he understates. “Yet there is no other way to live.”
A moving meditation on mortality by a gifted writer whose dual perspectives of physician and patient provide a singular clarity.Pub Date: Jan. 19, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-8129-8840-6
Page Count: 248
Publisher: Random House
Review Posted Online: Sept. 29, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2015
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by Abhijit V. Banerjee & Esther Duflo ‧ RELEASE DATE: Nov. 12, 2019
Occasionally wonky but overall a good case for how the dismal science can make the world less—well, dismal.
“Quality of life means more than just consumption”: Two MIT economists urge that a smarter, more politically aware economics be brought to bear on social issues.
It’s no secret, write Banerjee and Duflo (co-authors: Poor Economics: A Radical Rethinking of the Way To Fight Global Poverty, 2011), that “we seem to have fallen on hard times.” Immigration, trade, inequality, and taxation problems present themselves daily, and they seem to be intractable. Economics can be put to use in figuring out these big-issue questions. Data can be adduced, for example, to answer the question of whether immigration tends to suppress wages. The answer: “There is no evidence low-skilled migration to rich countries drives wage and employment down for the natives.” In fact, it opens up opportunities for those natives by freeing them to look for better work. The problem becomes thornier when it comes to the matter of free trade; as the authors observe, “left-behind people live in left-behind places,” which explains why regional poverty descended on Appalachia when so many manufacturing jobs left for China in the age of globalism, leaving behind not just left-behind people but also people ripe for exploitation by nationalist politicians. The authors add, interestingly, that the same thing occurred in parts of Germany, Spain, and Norway that fell victim to the “China shock.” In what they call a “slightly technical aside,” they build a case for addressing trade issues not with trade wars but with consumption taxes: “It makes no sense to ask agricultural workers to lose their jobs just so steelworkers can keep theirs, which is what tariffs accomplish.” Policymakers might want to consider such counsel, especially when it is coupled with the observation that free trade benefits workers in poor countries but punishes workers in rich ones.
Occasionally wonky but overall a good case for how the dismal science can make the world less—well, dismal.Pub Date: Nov. 12, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-61039-950-0
Page Count: 432
Publisher: PublicAffairs
Review Posted Online: Aug. 28, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2019
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