A well-documented but perhaps overly optimistic view of a future likely to be challenged by both environmentalists and...
Skeptic magazine founding publisher Shermer (The Believing Brain: From Ghosts and Gods to Politics and Conspiracies—How We Construct Beliefs and Reinforce Them as Truths, 2011, etc.) reviews the last 400 years of human history to substantiate his claim that it is science and reason, not religion, that reveal a path to “the betterment of humanity in a civilized state.”
“The economic problems of today are real but tractable…even in the most impoverished places on earth such as Africa,” writes the author. Brushing aside concerns about the environment, the accelerated extinction of species, looming resource shortages and political instability, Shermer predicts that by the end of the century, the levels of wealth and prosperity enjoyed in the developed world will be universal. The author believes that developments in our scientific understanding have created the conditions for an upward trend in morality, which he sees as synonymous with the advance of liberal democracies and a global economy. The author rejects the notion that religion has been the “driver of moral progress,” citing superstitious practices such as the burning of witches that were sanctioned until the 18th century. Shermer agrees with the defense of science by avowed atheist Richard Dawkins but also recognizes the positive role of religious leaders such as Martin Luther King Jr. and the Dalai Lama in their fight for human betterment. Taking slavery as an example, he attributes its “legal abolition and universal denunciation” to “rational arguments and scientific refutations of slavery,” which laid the groundwork for the recognition of the need to protect the rights of blacks, minorities, women, homosexuals and other persecuted groups. Shermer believes that reliance on the scientific method, multiculturalism, the free market and liberal democracy create the conditions necessary for continued progress.
A well-documented but perhaps overly optimistic view of a future likely to be challenged by both environmentalists and religious fundamentalists.Pub Date: Jan. 20, 2014
ISBN: 978-0805096910
Page Count: 560
Publisher: Henry Holt
Review Posted Online: Oct. 21, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2014
The Stoics did much better with the much shorter Enchiridion.
A follow-on to the author’s garbled but popular 48 Laws of Power, promising that readers will learn how to win friends and influence people, to say nothing of outfoxing all those “toxic types” out in the world.
Greene (Mastery, 2012, etc.) begins with a big sell, averring that his book “is designed to immerse you in all aspects of human behavior and illuminate its root causes.” To gauge by this fat compendium, human behavior is mostly rotten, a presumption that fits with the author’s neo-Machiavellian program of self-validation and eventual strategic supremacy. The author works to formula: First, state a “law,” such as “confront your dark side” or “know your limits,” the latter of which seems pale compared to the Delphic oracle’s “nothing in excess.” Next, elaborate on that law with what might seem to be as plain as day: “Losing contact with reality, we make irrational decisions. That is why our success often does not last.” One imagines there might be other reasons for the evanescence of glory, but there you go. Finally, spin out a long tutelary yarn, seemingly the longer the better, to shore up the truism—in this case, the cometary rise and fall of one-time Disney CEO Michael Eisner, with the warning, “his fate could easily be yours, albeit most likely on a smaller scale,” which ranks right up there with the fortuneteller’s “I sense that someone you know has died" in orders of probability. It’s enough to inspire a new law: Beware of those who spend too much time telling you what you already know, even when it’s dressed up in fresh-sounding terms. “Continually mix the visceral with the analytic” is the language of a consultant’s report, more important-sounding than “go with your gut but use your head, too.”
The Stoics did much better with the much shorter Enchiridion.Pub Date: Oct. 23, 2018
ISBN: 978-0-525-42814-5
Page Count: 580
Publisher: Viking
Review Posted Online: July 30, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2018
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A riveting look inside the human brain and its quirks.
Acclaimed British neurologist Sacks (Neurology and Psychiatry/Columbia Univ.; The Mind’s Eye, 2010, etc.) delves into the many different sorts of hallucinations that can be generated by the human mind.
The author assembles a wide range of case studies in hallucinations—seeing, hearing or otherwise perceiving things that aren’t there—and the varying brain quirks and disorders that cause them in patients who are otherwise mentally healthy. In each case, he presents a fascinating condition and then expounds on the neurological causes at work, drawing from his own work as a neurologist, as well as other case studies, letters from patients and even historical records and literature. For example, he tells the story of an elderly blind woman who “saw” strange people and animals in her room, caused by Charles Bonnet Syndrome, a condition in with the parts of the brain responsible for vision draw on memories instead of visual perceptions. In another chapter, Sacks recalls his own experimentation with drugs, describing his auditory hallucinations. He believed he heard his neighbors drop by for breakfast, and he cooked for them, “put their ham and eggs on a tray, walked into the living room—and found it completely empty.” He also tells of hallucinations in people who have undergone prolonged sensory deprivation and in those who suffer from Parkinson’s disease, migraines, epilepsy and narcolepsy, among other conditions. Although this collection of disorders feels somewhat formulaic, it’s a formula that has served Sacks well in several previous books (especially his 1985 bestseller The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat), and it’s still effective—largely because Sacks never turns exploitative, instead sketching out each illness with compassion and thoughtful prose.
A riveting look inside the human brain and its quirks.Pub Date: Nov. 6, 2012
ISBN: 978-0-307-95724-5
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: July 16, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2012
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