bookshelf

PASSIONS AND TEMPERS

Name: PASSIONS AND TEMPERS
Author: Noga Arikha
ISBN: 978-0-06-073116-8

A HISTORY OF THE HUMOURS

by Noga Arikha ‧ RELEASE DATE: June 1, 2007

A dense, challenging work, drawing on philosophy, the cognitive sciences and the histories of science, medicine and...

bookshelf

A scholarly examination of the persistence throughout history of thinking that personality and body type are linked to the presence in the body of four “humours.”

Warm moist blood; cold, moist phlegm; warm, dry yellow bile; and cold, dry black bile were the humours identified by ancient Greeks, most famously the physician Hippocrates. The system he formulated was spread beyond Greece by Galen, a Roman physician and scholar living in Asia Minor in the first century. Galen’s writings were preserved in the Arab world and then translated by Christian monks during the Middle Ages. As the medical philosophy of ancient Greece was adopted in the West, the humoural tradition guided medical practice and provided a sense of self-understanding. Tracing the history of ideas about the relation between mind and body from ancient Greece to the present day, Arikha shows how the idea of humoural balance offered not just medical guidance but moral guidance. By living a balanced life, people could control their passions, their bodies, their fate. This system linking moral vigor and physical health also contained elements of astrology and magic, helping to explain how material humours could affect an immaterial soul. Just as the old humours provided useful images for understanding our insides and our tempers, the author suggests, their contemporary equivalents—hormones, enzymes, neurotransmitters, etc.—provide a partial picture of the same psychological and physical realities. Scientists are still struggling to bridge the gap between what is known and what is not known about the body, the brain and the mind. As Arikha puts it, the humoural system reminds us that the best scientists and doctors are those who recognize how little they know; its history is “the underside of our present perplexities.”

A dense, challenging work, drawing on philosophy, the cognitive sciences and the histories of science, medicine and psychology.

Pub Date: June 1, 2007

ISBN: 978-0-06-073116-8

Page Count: 400

Publisher: Ecco/HarperCollins

Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2007

Categories:

GENERAL NONFICTION

- BOOK REVIEW
THE CEILING OUTSIDE
by Noga Arikha

- BOOK REVIEW
NAPOLEON AND THE REBEL
by Marcello Simonetta and Noga Arikha

bookshelf

NUTCRACKER

by E.T.A. Hoffmann ‧ RELEASE DATE: Oct. 28, 1996

bookshelf

This is not the Nutcracker sweet, as passed on by Tchaikovsky and Marius Petipa. No, this is the original Hoffmann tale of 1816, in which the froth of Christmas revelry occasionally parts to let the dark underside of childhood fantasies and fears peek through. The boundaries between dream and reality fade, just as Godfather Drosselmeier, the Nutcracker's creator, is seen as alternately sinister and jolly. And Italian artist Roberto Innocenti gives an errily realistic air to Marie's dreams, in richly detailed illustrations touched by a mysterious light. A beautiful version of this classic tale, which will captivate adults and children alike. (Nutcracker; $35.00; Oct. 28, 1996; 136 pp.; 0-15-100227-4)

Pub Date: Oct. 28, 1996

ISBN: 0-15-100227-4

Page Count: 136

Publisher: Harcourt

Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 1996

Categories:

GENERAL NONFICTION

- BOOK REVIEW
THE NUTCRACKER AND THE MOUSE KING
by E.T.A. Hoffmann ; adapted by Natalie Andrewson ; illustrated by Natalie Andrewson

- BOOK REVIEW
THE NUTCRACKER
by E.T.A. Hoffmann & illustrated by Julie Paschkis

bookshelf

TO THE ONE I LOVE THE BEST

EPISODES FROM THE LIFE OF LADY MENDL (ELSIE DE WOLFE)

by Ludwig Bemelmans ‧ RELEASE DATE: Feb. 23, 1955

bookshelf

An extravaganza in Bemelmans' inimitable vein, but written almost dead pan, with sly, amusing, sometimes biting undertones, breaking through. For Bemelmans was "the man who came to cocktails". And his hostess was Lady Mendl (Elsie de Wolfe), arbiter of American decorating taste over a generation. Lady Mendl was an incredible person,- self-made in proper American tradition on the one hand, for she had been haunted by the poverty of her childhood, and the years of struggle up from its ugliness,- until she became synonymous with the exotic, exquisite, worshipper at beauty's whrine. Bemelmans draws a portrait in extremes, through apt descriptions, through hilarious anecdote, through surprisingly sympathetic and understanding bits of appreciation. The scene shifts from Hollywood to the home she loved the best in Versailles. One meets in passing a vast roster of famous figures of the international and artistic set. And always one feels Bemelmans, slightly offstage, observing, recording, commenting, illustrated.