An impressive foray into the inner workings of modern civilization—and how it might yet be saved from itself.
An awkward, somewhat New Age-y title doesn’t begin to adequately serve this thorough analysis of human civilization and its primordial flaws.
Blame it on that pesky old reptilian brain and the ensuing hierarchies hatched in its wake. Be they familial, societal, governmental, religious or whatever else, Deehan convincingly traces the root of all evil to the myriad of stratified, top-down, command-and-control hierarchies that stubbornly persist to this day. The problem, according to the author, is that these manmade systems—so pervasive in our everyday lives—actually run counter to the intrinsic human need and desire for relationships rooted in freedom and equality. He calls this natural compulsion “love.” Simply put, “love” works, inequity doesn’t. As evidence, Deehan, a former hospital administrator and Navy fighter pilot, reaches all the way back to the very beginning and the Big Bang, where he finds proof of the inherent righteousness of collaboration in a rapidly cooling bowl of intergalactic “quark soup.” After all, it was here that equal elemental particles were free to join up with whichever other particles they chose to in an unfathomable quest to create something greater than themselves. Concurring thoughts from pioneering thinkers such as Jared Diamond, Carl Sagan and others further underscore the thesis. Alas, the road mankind (under the undue influence of the self-serving brain) ultimately took was starkly different and probably had its roots in ancient Akkad, where readers are introduced to old king Sargon and his bloody, but ultimately fruitless, 150-year dynasty. The economy and ease in which the author is able to relate such scientific and historical data is commendable. The writing is clear and focused throughout. In this short yet profound work, hierarchy is the disease, and “love”—in the form of freedom and equality—is the cure. Sadly, one need only look at the profound challenges facing today’s ego-driven, self-interested world to realize that.
An impressive foray into the inner workings of modern civilization—and how it might yet be saved from itself.Pub Date: July 26, 2011
ISBN: 978-1425998516
Page Count: 206
Publisher: AuthorHouse
Review Posted Online: Dec. 11, 2012
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Mostly conservative in its stance and choices but common-sensical and current.
Savvy counsel and starter lists for fretting parents.
New York Times Book Review editor Paul (My Life With Bob: Flawed Heroine Keeps Book of Books, Plot Ensues, 2017, etc.) and Russo, the children’s book editor for that publication, provide standard-issue but deftly noninvasive strategies for making books and reading integral elements in children’s lives. Some of it is easier said than done, but all is intended to promote “the natural, timeless, time-stopping joys of reading” for pleasure. Mediumwise, print reigns supreme, with mild approval for audio and video books but discouraging words about reading apps and the hazards of children becoming “slaves to the screen.” In a series of chapters keyed to stages of childhood, infancy to the teen years, the authors supplement their advice with short lists of developmentally appropriate titles—by their lights, anyway: Ellen Raskin’s Westing Game on a list for teens?—all kitted out with enticing annotations. The authors enlarge their offerings with thematic lists, from “Books That Made Us Laugh” to “Historical Fiction.” In each set, the authors go for a mix of recent and perennially popular favorites, leaving off mention of publication dates so that hoary classics like Janice May Udry’s A Tree Is Nice seem as fresh as David Wiesner’s Flotsam and Carson Ellis’ Du Iz Tak? and sidestepping controversial titles and themes in the sections for younger and middle-grade readers—with a few exceptions, such as a cautionary note that some grown-ups see “relentless overparenting” in Margaret Wise Brown’s Runaway Bunny. Laura Ingalls Wilder’s Little House series doesn’t make the cut except for a passing reference to its “troubling treatment of Indians.” The teen lists tend to be edgier, salted with the provocative likes of Art Spiegelman’s Maus and Angie Thomas’ The Hate U Give, and a nod to current demands for more LGBTQ and other #ownvoices books casts at least a glance beyond the mainstream. Yaccarino leads a quartet of illustrators who supplement the occasional book cover thumbnails with vignettes and larger views of children happily absorbed in reading.
Mostly conservative in its stance and choices but common-sensical and current.Pub Date: Sept. 3, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-5235-0530-2
Page Count: 216
Publisher: Workman
Review Posted Online: July 27, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2019
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Although Pipher defines the therapist’s job as clarifying issues and presenting choices rather than telling people what to...
A long-time psychotherapist mingles reassuring tips for a newcomer to the field with personal recollections of her own successes and failures.
Employing the same format as other volumes in this series (Todd Gitlin’s Letters to a Young Activist, p. 205, etc.), Pipher (Reviving Ophelia, 1994, etc.) writes letters to Laura, a young graduate student, setting forth some of her views on what therapy is all about and how good therapists do their work. The letters are grouped into seasons and date from early December 2001 to late November 2002. The winter correspondence discourses on the characteristics of good therapists, conducting family therapy, and helping clients connect surface complaints with deeper issues. Spring takes the author into the subjects of how to help patients deal with pain and achieve happiness, the use of metaphors as therapeutic devices, and the role of antidepressants in therapy. Pipher considers family therapy in more detail in the summer letters, which also take up the problem of the therapist’s personal safety. In the fall, she turns to ethical issues facing therapists, how storytelling can help clients see themselves in more positive ways, how to recognize and deflect patients’ resistance, and how to deal with failure. Ruefully recounting some of her own missteps and bad judgments, Pipher reminds her student that therapists are human and errors are inevitable. Throughout, she eschews psychological jargon and takes a commonsensical approach to the vicissitudes of living. As she puts it in describing her own sessions with clients, “I do bread-and-butter work”: she often suggests getting a good night’s sleep, going for a swim, or taking a walk.
Although Pipher defines the therapist’s job as clarifying issues and presenting choices rather than telling people what to do, giving advice seems to be second nature to her. Fortunately, the advice appears to be well considered and benign.Pub Date: Aug. 1, 2003
ISBN: 0-465-05766-7
Page Count: 208
Publisher: Basic Books
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2003
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