An accessible, eye-opening guidebook to the benefits of chiropractic therapy.
A comprehensive look at the effectiveness of chiropractic care in dealing with a wide array of health problems.
“Historically, the chiropractic profession has had to endure many obstacles,” writes Scott Darragh, a vice president of the Massachusetts Chiropractic Society, in the foreword to Barron’s new book. Barron himself confirms this statement, listing several persistent myths about chiropractic (including that it can cause strokes, or that its practitioners are unqualified), and warning, “Don’t trust a Google search to learn the truth about chiropractic care!” He then sets out to make his book a central clearinghouse for accurate information about the current state of his discipline. In nine fast-moving chapters, he outlines some of chiropractic’s successes in easing or reversing not only typical joint and muscle pain, but also such disparate complaints as asthma, concussions and even cardiac problems. The text is extensively illustrated, with chapters broken up into handy subsections for quick, easy consultation. Barron has been practicing chiropractic in the Boston area for more than 25 years, and as a result, he infuses his book with a great deal of medical information, presented simply and clearly; although the text can sometimes be quite technical, it never feels that way. As he addresses stress-related ailments such as carpal tunnel syndrome, scoliosis, lower-back pain, and some types of vertigo, his recommendations range from exercise and diet modification to the use of “cold laser” therapy. He accompanies his facts and charts with several real-life patient stories, drawn from his extensive experience. Finally, Barron rounds out his instructions and advice with an often sobering look at the state of the American health care system, particularly regarding its relationship to chiropractic, which includes good information about what insurance companies tend to cover or disallow. Throughout, Barron stresses that, for many health issues, chiropractic is a viable alternative treatment to more invasive, expensive approaches.
An accessible, eye-opening guidebook to the benefits of chiropractic therapy.Pub Date: June 20, 2014
ISBN: 978-0741471659
Page Count: 162
Publisher: Infinity Publishing
Review Posted Online: Nov. 3, 2014
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
An absorbing study of the role of style and design in early postwar American culture. Marling (Art History and American Studies/ Univ. of Minnesota; coauthor of Iwo Jima: Monuments and the American Hero, 1991) examines the period when TV first leveled its electronic gaze at American life and a dynamic new set of visual and cultural values were born. She describes leisure pursuits like amateur painting— and its ghastly derivative, the paint-by-numbers set—that rose with the country's self-conscious new prosperity; the growth of automobile fetishism; kitchen gadgets and their meaning for ever- busier women; Elvis's nouveau-riche stylistic pretensions; and national unease over the comparative worth of less frivolous Soviet accomplishments. The book begins slowly, detailing the national obsession with Mamie Eisenhower's hair and clothing, but gathers momentum in describing Disneyland's antecedents, the psychosexual lure of chrome-laden cars, and the growing hegemony of design over function in the development of American products. Marling writes with flair, and her text engages the reader even when profound insight is lacking. Readers may disagree with her on occasion (that ``the French [fashion] salon is a woman's place, ultimately governed by her preferences and skills'' seems debatable). And sometimes the breezy tone is less appropriate—memoranda showing how Betty Crocker psychologists exploited women's fears of failure in the kitchen arouse no comment from the author. Assertions that designers provided buyers a sensation of mobility and choice, and that these aren't bad aims, on the other hand, make sense. And Marling's right in noting that critics often missed what was pleasurable—and anti-elitist—about ``populuxe'' fashions of the '50s. Though Marling chooses to remain more chronicler than critic, this archaeology of our recent visual past is as important as any recent political history of the period, and far fresher in approach. (Illustrations, not seen)
Pub Date: Sept. 1, 1994
ISBN: 0-674-04882-2
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Harvard Univ.
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 1994
An ideal pathfinder on the Beatles' long and winding road from moptops to magi—insightful, informative, contentious, and as ambitious and surprising as its heroes. Popular music criticism is often a thankless task, falling uneasily between mindless hype and lugubrious academicism. MacDonald, former deputy editor of New Musical Express, adroitly bridges that gap, taking the factual chassis—recording session data, itineraries, etc.—laboriously assembled by Beatlemaniacs like Mark Lewisohn and bringing to bear a fan's enthusiasm, a musicologist's trained ear, and a critic's discernment to produce the most rigorous and reliable assessment of the Beatles' artistic achievement to date. Advancing chronologically through the songs, MacDonald provides an encyclopedic wealth of biographical, musical, and historical detail, yet always keeps his eyes on the prize—the uniquely rich elixir the group distilled from these disparate elements. He considers the Beatles on their own musical and cultural terms, taking his cue from contemporary influences (rhythm-and-blues, soul, and the supercharged social crucible of the '60s), rather than straining for highbrow parallels in Schoenberg or Schubert—you'll find no reference to the infamous ``Aeolian cadences'' of ``This Boy'' here. MacDonald makes no bones about his own critical convictions: He prefers the artful structures of pop, its ``energetic topicality'' that ``captures a mood or style in a condensed instant,'' to rock's ``dull grandiosity,'' a shift he attributes to a general retreat since the '60s away from depth and craftsmanship into spectacle and sensation. Accordingly, he champions the pop classicism of the Beatles' early-middle period, culminating in Revolver and Sgt. Pepper, and in his most memorably acerbic passages deplores the rockist leanings of their later work: ``Helter Skelter,'' for instance, is dismissed as ``ridiculous, McCartney shrieking weedily against a backdrop of out-of-tune thrashing.'' The ultimate Beatles Bible? Certainly a labor of love, and all the more valuable for holding the Fabs to the highest critical standards.
Pub Date: Sept. 1, 1994
ISBN: 0-8050-2780-7
Page Count: 256
Publisher: Henry Holt
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 1994
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