Book Description

As author of the bestselling Why People Believe Weird Things How We Believe, and Editor-in-Chief of Skeptic magazine, Michael Shermer has emerged as the nation's number one scourg of superstition and bad science. Now, in The Borderlands of Science, he takes us to the place where real science (such as the big bang theory), borderland science (superstring theory) and just plain nonsense (Big Foot) collide with one another.

Shermer argues that science is the best lens through which to view the world, but he recognizes that it's often difficult for most of us to tell where valid science leaves off and borderland science begins. To help us, Shermer looks at a range of topics that put the boundary line in high relief. For instance, he discusses the many "theories of everything" that try to reduce the complexity of the world to a single principle, and shows how most fall into the category of pseudoscience. He examines the work of Darwin and Freud, explaining why one is among the great scientists in history, while the other has become nothing more than a historical curiosity. He also shows how Carl Sagan's life exemplified the struggle we all face to find a balance between being open-minded enough to recognize radical new ideas but not so open-minded that our brains fall out. And finally, he reveals how scientists themselves can be led astray, as seen in the infamous Piltdown Hoax.

Michael Shermer's enlightening volume will be a valuable a to anyone bewildered by the many scientific theories swirling about. It will help us stay grounded in common sense as we try to evaluate everything from SETI and acupuncture to hypnosis and cloning. ... Read more

Reviews (17)

Not the Applied Skepticism book I wanted, but good anyway.
What I'm looking for is a detailed users' manual for a Baloney Detection Kit (as Carl Sagan called it.) I'd hoped to find this in one of Shermer's previous works, Why People Believe Weird Things, and I'd hoped to find it here. In both cases, the first part of the book did exactly this, but somewhere along the way it turned into case studies of debunking, rather than the process of debunking. (That's okay: they're well-written.)

Michael Shermer's background is psychology and ultra-long-distance cycling; he's written a number of books on cycling and analysis of (and refutation of) Holocaust deniers. He's also president (apparently for life) of the American Skeptics society and a reasonably good writer. In this book, Shermer spends a lot of time talking about the scientific method, its strengths and potential flaws -- and, more importantly, its system for dealing with its flaws (which he claims "sets science apart from all other knowledge systems and intellectual disciplines" -- a heady claim I wish he discussed more.)

Since this is supposed to be a review of Borderlands and not Weird Things, I'll just say that if you like this, you'll like the other as well. In The Borderlands Of Science, he analyzes beliefs that are at defensible, beliefs that could (or were once thought to) be scientifically accurate. Among these are, for instance, ramifications of cloning, confirmation bias in explaining racial differences in sports (about which Malcolm Gladwell has also written), and a whole, whole lot of discussion of Alfred Wallace. Wallace and Charles Darwin were both responsible for the theory of evolution. Wallace is not remembered as widely for a number of reasons, which are explored in frightening detail in roughly 3.5 of the 16 chapters of this book. Shermer did his doctoral thesis on Wallace, not coincidentally. The ratio of stuff-about-Wallace-or-Evolution to everything-else, by chapter, is 3:7; Shermer is pretty focussed on this specific discussion.
The book has four sections: a short introduction (which is quite heavy in skeptical theory, exactly what I wanted) and the main body, discussing borderlands theories, people, and history. In theories, he tends to stray a little from 'why people believe weird things' into 'why stupid people believe weird things' (as he did in the book of the same title) and that's fun. He covers a lot of quite current topics (like cloning, Wacky Unified Field Theories, the importance of Punctured Equilibrium in the evolution of evolutionary theory.)

In section two: people, he discusses the Copernican revolution and its effects, then goes off about Alfred Wallace. Here, he does something weird that needs more discussion. In analyzing Wallace, he constructs a psychological profile, which he derived by having a large number of Wallace experts fill out a survey of the "strongly agree, 9, 8,.. 3, 2, strongly disagree" sort, and then uses the results of these surveys to fill in his discussion of why Wallace became a scientific spiritualist, for instance. It's an interesting technique that he also uses with Steven Jay Gould and Carl Sagan. It is tempting to ask how much confirmation bias exists in a survey of this sort, though. Since I've already let the spoiler out of the bag, Shermer discusses Gould and Sagan, spends some time doing a statistical analysis of Sagan's greatness as a scientist (by comparing published papers by topic with a number of other contemporary, canonically great scientists) and pauses briefly to smack Freud upside the head in a somewhat snarky comparison of Freud and Darwin.

Finally, in section three: histories, he does a lovely discussion of the myth of pastoral tranquillity, including a quick summary of four ancient civilizations that probably managed to destroy themselves through environmental stupidity without (as he puts it) any need of Dead White European Males coming in and inflicting devastation from outside. Shermer then analyzes (and debunks) the theory of transcendent genius, the Mozart Myth, as he calls it, and goes back to two more chapters on Wallace and evolution, in a discussion of the Piltdown Man hoax and why that should (but doesn't seem to have) support the idea that science can be self-correcting and learn from its mistakes.

I like what Shermer is doing, and he writes well and readably. If I sound a bit impatient, it's because I want him to be writing about the application of critical thinking rather than case studies, and when he starts out writing just what I want to read, then goes off in a different direction, he leaves me standing at the intersection saying "hey, wait, this isn't the bus I wanted." The book could stand to be either edited down into two books: a Wallace analysis and a case studies in how science inspects itself discussion, or edited up with a clearer discussion of the math involved in his statistical analysis of Sagan or his psychological profiling of people. In the end, I liked it, I learned a fair bit from it, and I would recommend it to people who want to learn more about both critical thinking and science history.

A World of Glasshouses
I'm a scientist, an astronomer specifically, and I'm not really the target audience here I suspect (even though in the line of work I have had to respond to a number of "Borderlands" claims). Objectively this is a 3-star book, but the sleight-of-hand marketing biases me against it.

This is a semi-scholarly work written by a science historian. Most of the essays revolve around Darwin, Wallace, and evolution. With these essays, and a handful of others, Shermer takes a historical approach to the "borderlands of science" to look at the process of how scientific theories develop to acceptance. He looks at very few cases of the current borderlands, and of those he does he makes generally weak arguments (and not scientific ones) with correspondingly weak conclusions. An early chapter on remote viewing is the exception.

The wordcount here is limited, but I wanted to point out some specific problem points. In the chapter asking if Sagan was "a great scientist," one questioning his rejection from the National Academy of Sciences (NAS), Shermer compares his publications to "the creme de le creme" of scientists: Gould, E. O. Wilson, Jared Diamond, and Mayr. The comparisons involve number of honorary degrees, popular articles, advisory groups, books, etc. There is NEVER a comparison of his scientific publication rate or citation rate versus NAS ASTRONOMERS, a primary criterion for the NAS membership who understands that publication practices vary from field to field. Shermer sets up a straw man and knocks it down, the same thing he accuses pseudoscientists of doing. He never comes close to making an argument about whether or not Sagan was a good scientist, merely that he was a well-known one who was highly regarded for his popularization.

I liked the idea of the chapter on the "Amadeus Myth," which is a topic worthy of comment, but not the execution. We like to make myths of our heroes. But here is another straw man, where Shermer's "genius" is equated to practicing math tricks and never very well characterized. Prodigies are not discussed.

Cosmology is noted as suffering from a bias against "historical science." This is far from true, I assure you. Origins programs in astronomy get funding far ABOVE their non-historical competitors.

A whole chapter is spent discussing whether or not punctuated equilibrium represents a "paradigm shift" of evolution. This is the semantic playing field of a science historian, and of little interest to actual scientists.

Shermer indeed would seem to have such a bias against what he calls "nonscience" topics that he gives them almost no mention. While he lumps, for instance, "Big Foot" in with some poor company, he later quotes anthropologist Krantz in another chapter on another subject; Krantz is one of a number of credible scientists who take the topic seriously. The same cannot be said for his other "nonscience" topics, yet all get rated equally at 0.1 with no discussion.

Indeed, despite Shermer's interesting discussion about a spectrum of "science," his spectrum seems to correspond to his idea of the ideas' correctness, NOT their scientific validity. What is validity (to play Shermer's word games)? All topics can be validly studied using the tools of science. Some are routinely, and some are not. He should have used a different term. I found myself losing trust in Shermer.

When Shermer finds that SETI pioneers are primarily first-born rather than later siblings as in most other scientific revolutions, he finds a way to argue it away in terms of their religion. I did not see this sort of multiple parameter analysis in the comparison sample, so should I believe it? Or did he just invoke the same kind of wishful thinking he criticizes in others?

I had many more problem points that kept my "doubt-o-meter" ringing at regular intervals.

What my criticisms mostly boil down to is that Shermer writes and acts as a science historian much better than he does as a scientist. He gives hints all too often that he doesn't think like a scientist, and this made me distrustful while reading.

This is a shame. I used to subscribe to the Skeptical Inquirer, but let that lapse since that magazine too often took lazy pot shots at the same easy targets again and again. Shermer, and Shermer's magazine the Skeptic, for the most part shoot at more interesting targets, but I'm afraid not as well as they should.

Shermer Ruins the Book by Talking Too Much
I expected more of Mr. Shermer in this outing, given his excellent work in Why People Believe Weird Things. But then, in that book, Shermer took on and successfully skewered the easy targets, such as UFO nuts, believers in astrology and other New Age fantasies, revisionist Holocaust deniers and whatnot. However, his latest effort basically amounts to little more than a barely intelligible rant than thoughtful scholarship. Shermer begins with a bold objective- trying to lay down demarcation lines between generally accepted science (as is generally accepted by scientists themselves), iffy propositions which he calls borderlands science, and a large group of topics that he labels non-science and pseudo science. I must say without hesitation that he fails miserably in his objective, partly due to his poor choice of content, but mostly because of his even poorer writing style.

Although the book starts out well, the writing steadily devolves, and by the fifth chapter, the reader must set his or her shoulders and hunker down for some very painful reading. Like most PhD holders, Shermer has acquired an impressive amount of scholarly trivia over the course of his education, yet somehow did not the master the mechanics of good writing. This actually is not hard to believe, as too many people finishing PhD programs in engineering, science and to the dishonor of all liberal arts traditions, English and history programs can not string together a few decent words of prose. Honestly, many of these programs think that they can make up for a lack of erudite soul with an overdose of abstract quantitation and esoteric facts.

And boy oh boy does this approach show in Mr. Shermer's stilted and constipated text. Moreover, as someone who regards himself as a champion of the hypothesis test and the scientific method, he really should know when to appropriately use such methods, and when not to use them. In reading his text, I got the feeling that in his graduate training he only attended the lectures in his Statistical Methods for the Social Sciences having to do with hypothesis testing, and studiously skipped all the other lectures, particularly those having to do with measurement, validity, operational definition and level of trust in results.

I say this because in his chapter on Psuedoscience and Race, he utterly fails to lay down an operational definition, and merely assumes that everyone shares the same common definition of race and knows what he is referring to. He also fails to consider the history of race and the common knowledge that race is a social construct, not a biological phenomenon. Though he provides a context (U.S. race relations), he does not provide an operational definition. He also seems unaware of considerable population genetic and molecular genetic evidence which would make it impossible for most in America to claim, at least from a genetic standpoint, to be truly 'white' or truly 'black'. Thus, from this one would have to assume, especially when reading Mr. Shermer's screed, that he defines race based on physical appearance pretty much like everybody else. However, scientists would take a different point of view, much as many a bigotted proponent of eugenics have on many occasions.

A second bone of contention that I have with Mr. Shermer's overly scientific and inappropriately quantitative approach to everything is his use in Part II Borderlands People, of quantitative methods to evaluate purely subjective things. Some variables we measure are concrete and have meaning that is fixed, such as weight, temperature and volume, athough we can use metric or English units to evaluate them. However, as I recall from one statistics text (the actual text is Richard M. Jaeger's Statistics A Spectator Sport), things like intelligence or neuroticism are totally subjective because their meaning and their measurement can change depending on who is evaluating and measuring them. For such things, there can be no common agreement as to definition or even measurement.

Which I believe Shermer should have learned, thus invalidating the invocation of Sulloway's work in his exposition. A good educational regimen in statistics (which I believe should begin with Moore's Statistics: Concepts and Controversies) would emphasize the importance of looking behind the numbers, using the appropriate measurement methods, and taking into account information other than that in the test when drawing conclusions. None of this was done within this text.

Still, I did learn a few things, being quite surprised to learn that there was actually a black champion cyclist, and Mr. Shermer did make a number of correct points. I also give him credit for (grudgingly) admitting, in his last chapter, that scientists are people too, and are motivated by the same concerns and issues like everyone else. Yet, this does not make up for the overall bad writing and worse scholarship. I expect, no, I insist on better from a self-respecting skeptic.

An Excellent Primer on Critical Thinking
Michael Shermer gives an open and honest account about the inner workings of scientific thought as well as exposing ideas that-even today-many take as fact. The above reviews criticize Shermer for presenting science as philosophy, but there is no question that science is a belief system-it is influenced by culture and opinion. It does not exist as some purely isolated set of truths, partitioned from reality. This is Shermer's point about many scientific ideas throughout the book, not a blunder or misstep. Yes, science uses a particular method to understand the world. But Shermer points out that there are culturally driven forces behind the things we chose to study. Anyone versed in scientific method understands this. Throughout the book, Shermer stresses the criteria for labeling something "science".
Using a textbook definition of science will get you nowhere if your intent is to understand how science truly works. If you want to find the true meaning of life, for instance, rarely would you use Webster's to find it.
This is a great book for anyone truly interested in science and scientific thought. Shermer uses interesting stories, facts and ideas to relay his message that science may not always be as cut and dry as we may think, but its the best method we have of interpreting the world around us.

Very well arranged
The Borderlands of Science, like all good science books includes philosophy. When you are writing about the importance and big picture of science, writing about philosophy is inevitable and very much necessary to show the meaning. Because Shermer has so much experience in cricism it is only right that he debunk nonsciences such as remote viewing. I will be anxious for new literature. ... Read more

Amazon.com

The Mathematical Universe is a solid collection of short essays, with each addressing a particular mathematical topic. Titles range from "Isoperimetric Problem" to "Where Are the Women?" Author Dunham is unafraid to refer to diagrams, equations, and rigorous arguments throughout the book, yet he manages to maintain a conversational tone. ... Read more

Reviews (23)

A Delightful Journey
As the book's subtitle suggests, it is a journey through some of the world's greatest mathematical achievements. It is a collection of quasi-independent essays, loosely patterned after children's ABC picture books.

For me there were two things that made this book a joy to read. One was that, as the preface states, "each chapter provides a strong dose of history." This way each topic was considered in some human context that revealed just how remarkable its development was. The other trait I liked was that while each chapter followed the same basic formula, i.e., some history and then some math, no two chapters were presented in the same way. Thus, Dr. Dunham was able to avoid predictability.

Though the mathematics in this book was not terribly challenging, the reader should be fairly mathematically inclined. The historical periods covered were weighted in favor of the classical Greeks and the 17th century Europeans, and the corresponding developments paralleled current curricula through lower division college math courses.

On the minus side, I would like to have seen a bibliography in addition to the notes at the back of the book.

Not too technical, but not to elementary.
Absolutely wonderful. This book should be titled "Obscure Math For Dummies," as it is always written so that a reader with basic mathematical background can understand it. I have read quite a bit of similar titles, but this is the ONLY one I would reccommend! The Mathematical Universe patches up holes of concepts that you never quite understood as well as introduces plenty of new math and its history. Loved the coverage of number theory.

Excellent
Excellent book that gives us a synopsis of the history of maths from early days. The only criticism I found (and no doubt other readers and the author) is that by virtue of the title, we are limited to one piece as per each letter of the alphabet. I personally would have liked to see the Z chapter written on Zero.

That apart, quite an entertaining read and highly recommended. Dunham should write some more.

Very Entertaining and informative
This book is perhaps the most entertaining popularization I ever came across.The book uses a minimum of mathematical technics to explain a lot of interesting problems and the genius of the men who first solved them.
Although the mathematical required is minimun , this is not a book for the complete mathematical illiterated reader

A fun way to do ABCs
After reading this book, one wishes that the cardinality of the English alphabet was much larger. That way, there would have been more letters and hence more chapters. Each of the twenty-five chapters deals with a theme that begins with a letter of the alphabet (X- Y plane is one chapter). Some poetic license is taken here. For example, the K chapter has the title Knighted Newton, but that is just part of the fun.
The author takes an approach that differs from most popular expositions in that there is a good deal of emphasis on the personalities (sometimes cantankerous) of the characters. Mathematicians are often portrayed as brilliant air heads ignorant of the ways of humanity, but here they have all of the human foibles. It is sadly true that intellectual battles are among the most viscous of all. The cross-channel dispute over the origins of calculus lasted for decades and was extremely acrimonious. It took less time for nations to kiss and make up after wars that killed millions of people than it did for the mathematical communities of Britain and France to "resolve" the priority dispute between Newton and Liebniz.
Familial rivalry reached extreme heights (lows) in the Bernoulli family, as at times solving was placed in second position behind squabbling. However, many of the personalities were quite ordinary . Pierre Fermat was in many ways an ordinary member of the French bureaucracy whose life outside mathematics seems to have been quite dull. The most prolific mathematician of all time, Leonhard Euler, was a quite likable father of many children who managed to perform superb mathematics even after going blind.
There is a slithering humorous vein coursing throughout the book, occasionally good but most often a member of the groaner set. The author avoids using the title, "Here's Looking at Eu-Clid," but cannot resist mentioning it later. There is even speculation as to why 50 percent of male mathematicians have beards. Since this reviewer has one, he will offer his own solution. Shaving is boring!
A fascinating collection of essays that touch every facet of the history of mathematics, this is sure to be one of the largest of the crown jewels of popular mathematics.

Published in Journal of Recreational Mathematics, reprinted with permission. ... Read more

Book Description

In his monumental 1687 work Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica, known familiarly as the Principia, Isaac Newton laid out in mathematical terms the principles of time, force, and motion that have guided the development of modern physical science. Even after more than three centuries and the revolutions of Einsteinian relativity and quantum mechanics, Newtonian physics continues to account for many of the phenomena of the observed world, and Newtonian celestial dynamics is used to determine the orbits of our space vehicles.

This completely new translation, the first in 270 years, is based on the third (1726) edition, the final revised version approved by Newton; it includes extracts from the earlier editions, corrects errors found in earlier versions, and replaces archaic English with contemporary prose and up-to-date mathematical forms.

Newton's principles describe acceleration, deceleration, and inertial movement; fluid dynamics; and the motions of the earth, moon, planets, and comets. A great work in itself, the Principia also revolutionized the methods of scientific investigation. It set forth the fundamental three laws of motion and the law of universal gravity, the physical principles that account for the Copernican system of the world as emended by Kepler, thus effectively ending controversy concerning the Copernican planetary system.

The illuminating Guide to the Principia by I. Bernard Cohen, along with his and Anne Whitman's translation, will make this preeminent work truly accessible for today's scientists, scholars, and students.

"This new, vastly better translation of the Principia is the perfect work for illustrating how science, at its best, succeeds in turning data into decisive evidence."--George E. Smith, Tufts University

"This translation is deeply impressive and will be the definitive version for a century to come. Cohen's guide is up-to-date on matters of Newton scholarship and free from discarded conjectures of the past."--Curtis Wilson, St. John's College ... Read more

Reviews (13)

now there is a good english edition!
[...]
It was very difficult to grasp in Latin (I've had a try on it),
not that much easy in the Motte facsimile translation (I can assure it), and the Cajori-Motte edition was only half modernized and otherwise flawed.

This edition, sponsored by I.B. Cohen (the Latin editor) gives us a fresh, modern English translation of the text, and -almost as thick- a guide to using and reading this all-important book, which is not -as everybody is aware- an easy reader. One word of caution: Newton was, of course, (pace Leibnitz) the discoverer of calculus, but he doesn't use it here, but "more geometrico"
rigorous proofs, much in the style of that other genius of all ages, Archimedes. If you need help grasping the contents and impact of this work, then you must get some book like DENSMORE, D., Newton's Principia: The Central Argument (other auxiliary books are commented in the Guide potion of the book I'm reviewing).

A humbling and awe inspiring experience...
This is the third time I have read the PRINCIPIA. Every time I come back with even greater awe and respect for this masterpiece.

Friends, this is a classic work. Reading this book and digesting the material is an experience you will never forget. Just imagine. Three hundred and some years ago Newton came up with the theory of fluxions (Calculus), the theory of light, the theory of gravitation, and much more. Then reading about it in his own words (here translated from the original Latin); is very humbling and awe inspiring.

A word of caution. The writing is turgid in keeping with the times and because it is a translation. Also, if you are not familiar with calculus or basic classical mechanics the material will require an extra effort on your part. This is NOT a easy read. Therefore, take your time reading this book. Maybe even a chapter a week. After the initial inconveniences believe me you will not regret it. You will be inspired and plain surprised that this jewel of knowledge is so affordable to us today.

A Masterful Translation
When not using this book as a reference, I often use it to exercise. Seriously, the translation from the original Latin has finally paid off. This book is an important part of science and history. One can get into the thought processes of Newton with this book. Having read other translations, I must say that this one is by far the best.

Great
Among a very select few others including the Bible and the Code of Hammurabi, this is one of the most important books ever written. This is where Isaac Newton first publicly put forth the calculus and the scientific method. A tremendous intellectual rupture that we are still dealing with, this book was indirectly responsible for historical shifts such as the Enlightenment and the Industrial Revolution. No mean feat.

The Principa is not an introductory calculus for the modern reader. It is written in Newton's own notational style. This style is different from the modern one, used in calculus today. The modern calculus notation system was devised by Leibniz. Newton's system of notation proved less useful than Leibniz's, and the better one has won out. Leibniz had independently discovered the calculus prior to the publication of Principia. Thus, Leibniz was not influenced by Newton's notational style. Leibniz's discovery of the calculus was made in secret on the continent several years after Newton had made his own secret discovery of it in Britain. Leibniz's work was published only after Newton's Principia was published. This led Newton to wrongly believe that his work had been stolen. An epic debate between the British and continental academies ensued with each side championing their man.

This book has enormous historical interest. For a person who is already educated in calculus, this book will take you to the source of the subject matter, the mouth of the Nile, so to speak. As for the scientific method, this is where it was conceived.

Well-done translation; not in a thoroughly modern in style
There's no point in me critiquing the Principia itself--it's been done hundreds of times--so I'll focus on the translation.

The translation follows the original Latin work rather closely; about as closely as the older Motte-Cajoli translation, in fact. However, the translators have modernized the terminology, fixed many errors, and put many awkward Latin formulations into a modern mathematical notation.

But, generally speaking, the text still feels 1670's-ish. I, unfortunately, was looking for a much looser translation, into a thorougly modern mathematical style. I was more interested in understanding Newton's mathematical thought process than his writing style (which in Latin wasn't quite as pleasant as it was in English).

So, to readers looking for a throroughly modern mathematical style, this isn't it. However, I believe this is still the most modern English translation there is.

Apart from my particular wants, however, I found this translation to be very well done. The translators included a detailed description of their rationale.

As a mechanical engineer, where this work is the ultimate foundation of everything I do, I am very happy to own it. ... Read more

Book Description

The Creation of Flowing Forms in Water and Air

Theodor Schwenk

Translated by Olive Whicher & Johanna Weigley

More than ever before, today we need "water consciousness" and we can begin with this essential and classic book on water as the universal bearer of living, formative processes.

Beginning with simple flowing phenomena of water and air, Schwenk gradually builds up, with the help of marvelous photographs and drawings, the "letters" of an alphabet that will allow us to "read" the living meaning of water.

The spiritual, formative processes are gradually brought to light, and we come to recognize the Creative Word in the universe.

Fully illustrated. ... Read more

Reviews (2)

Water, Water, Everywhere
It's out-of-print. No one you know has ever heard of this book. No matter: the trouble you may have in finding a copy of Sensitive Chaos will be worth it. The images will remain with you. The text will teach the old dog (you) new tricks. And years and years from now you will still recognize the spiral of water in the things you see, and you'll even feel a little more connected to the world. Beautiful book.

A beautiful and poetic view of science
This beautiful book remains scientifically accurate while describing in poetic and spiritual style the flowing of fluids in nature. A beautiful collection of pictures illustrates how even living things follow the rules of fluid flow as new cells flow forth in the growth process. ... Read more

Book Description

Reviews (8)

Learn from the master
It might not be a bad idea to make this book compulsory reading at all military academies...and then ban it in Iraq while America still has the authority to do so.

I think Mao intended this essay to be another one of his theoretical Marxist works (Mao thought of himself as a first-class Marxist theoretician). But without question it also served as an instruction manual for his ragtag Red Army while fighting among the tortuous terrain in northwestern China, in part against Japan, in part against Chiang. Considering his success as a practitioner of guerrilla warfare, one would have to be insane to ignore this work.

I'm struck how short that chapter is on guerrilla wars in history. Mao was widely read in Chinese and world history and it would have been his style to display this knowledge in a work like this had he chosen to do so.

Americans should not think of themselves as only at the receiving end of guerrillas. Washington learned this kind of fighting during the French and Indian Wars, and he put some of this experience to good use against a British army better armed, better trained, and greater in numbers than the Continentals. He exploited geography, made surprise raids, used mobility and patience to wear out the red coats - all hallmarks of guerrillas. The all-important Battle of Trenton was such kind of unconventional warfare: an Indian raid, essentially. But it sure got results. Regular or conventional battles like Yorktown only came later, when British impatience was at the breaking point.

Mao really could have done better than just cite Russian resistance to Napoleon as an example. (Never mind his other Chinese examples. for the moment.) Apart from Washington, the Spaniards also tore the Grand Armee to pieces with guerrillas - in fact, Spain's where the word came from. Of course, another great example of guerrilla warfare was Stalingrad. But always, to my mind, the Teutoberg forest was where guerrillas first made their greatest name in Western history. (I know little Greek history to comment further.) Octavian lost three Roman legions thanks to the German barbarians, and Rome hadn't suffered a panic quite like this since Spartacus.

Believe it or not, Mao got his inspiration not from Lenin (though he paid much lip service to him), not even from Sun Tsu (whom he read only when his military career was over), but from the classic historical novels of ancient China, especially The Water Margins and Three Kingdoms. That he didn't cite these is understandable enough: he always insisted on learning truths from facts, and novels don't provide facts though they do generate interest in the motivated reader. And Mao was nothing if not motivated.

Griffith's extraordinary credentials are not worth repeating here. His intro is excellent. He is dead right that guerrillas thrive anywhere: from the dense jungle of Vietnam to the flat deserts of Iraq. Where there are men willing to fight, and a will to win, and patience, all it takes is a little hard thinking to make them great guerrillas. Let us learn from the master, not by regurgitating his rules, which he would never have done himself, but by thinking critically and philosophically through his logic.

Nothing secret
I read this in high school in the late 1980s and asked myself, "Why wasn't this mandatory reading at West Point in the late 1950s and 1960s?"
This book, in conjunction with Ho Chi Min's writings on the use of guerrilla warfare, is the absolute basic understanding of the Viet Nam War from back BEFORE the French Foreign Legion were fighting for their colony. EVERYTHING, and I do mean EVERYTHING, in this book is used in the fight against the French right up to Dien Bien Phue, and continued up until the fall of Saigon in 1975. EVERYTHING. Why did America lose the Viet Nam War? Read this. How could America have been so wrong to back Ho Chi Min, Chaing Chi Chek, and Kim Il Song, in the Second World War? Read this.
You will say, "Wow" many times throughout the book, and in the end you will ask, "When was this first printed? How the bleep could we have been so wrong?"

The Treatise on Guerrilla Warfare
Stanley B. Griffiths work is timeless, relevant, and is a must read for those seriously exploring the Western use of joint, interagency, and multinational force to counter guerrilla activities in Afghanistan, Iraq, Indonesia, Colombia, etc.. Griffith's 1961 introduction alone is worth the price of the book. His recommendation to study guerrilla warfare in 1940 and again in 1961 was on the mark. He cites examples of successful guerrilla operations (Frances Marion; the Spanish against Napoleon; the Russians against Napoleon; the Russians against Hitler; the Vietnamese against the French, Castro in Cuba) and the value of these historical examples to further study. He cites ten key factors worth comparing to determine which side has the advantage in a guerrilla war. His discussion of the three phases of guerrilla war, and the warning to stop them before they they advance beyond phase one is sage advice. His recommendation to locate, isolate, and eradicate is a simple pattern for developing an effective counterguerrilla strategy. He does warn that countering guerrilla operations is not solely a military activity--the political arm is the key. Perhaps it is his conclusion that historically, there has not been a counter to revolutionary guerrilla warfare which gives one pause when addressing world events in 2003. Griffith comes to these conclusions by laying out Mao's thought in simple, clear writing. Essentially, Mao recognized the fundamental disparity between agrarian and urban societies, he advocated unorthodox strategies that converted deficits into advantages: using intelligence provided by the sympathetic peasant population; substituting deception, mobility, and surprise for superior firepower; using retreat as an offensive move; and educating the inhabitants as an offensive move; and educating the inhabitants on the ideological basis of the struggle. This radical approach to warfare, waged in the mountains by mobile guerrilla bands closely supported by local inhabitants, has been adopted by other revolutionary leaders throughout the world. The challenge for those studying guerrilla warfare is still on the table: what do you do about it? A start, is reading Mao's writings which provide the first documented, systematic study of the subject.

Surprising
Before reading this book, I thought guerilla warfare consisted of a farmer firing off his shotgun at passing helicopters. Mao's text reveals a great deal more planning, thought and organization must go into conducting a successful insurgency. Short and to the point, this book is a surprising modern account of employing guerilla warfare against a more powerful enemy. Some, though not all, of these strategies can be seen in America's intervention in Iraq.

One thing worth noting: this text is by and large theoretical. This was Mao's intention it seems, so those who expect to see indepth analysis of real battles might be disappointed. Through the text, Mao does reference several campaigns that buttress his arguments, but chances are they will be unfamiliar to a non-military history buff. It will require your own effort and thinking to observe these guerilla tactics in battles familiar to Americans, such as in Vietnam and Afghanistan.

See the Roadmap for the Terrorists Right Here
I first read this book in Nam as a young Marine Sniper. I served two tours there and have written about it in my book. When Sept 11 happened and I heard all this stuff about the new tactics and new war and how we've never faced this stuff I pulled this book off my shelves and read some pieces to my wife without telling her what it was from and she thought I was reading what they were saying on tv. (...) Worth reading folks. ... Read more

Book Description

The seventh volume of The Correspondence of Charles Darwin covers two of the most momentous years in Darwin's life and in the history of science. Begun in 1856, Darwin's big book on species, later published as Natural Selection (Cambridge University Press, 1974) was a little more than half finished when Darwin unexpectedly received a letter and a manuscript from Alfred Russel Wallace indicating that he too had independently formulated a theory of natural selection. In a letter to his friend, Charles Lyell, Darwin wrote, "So all my originality, whatever it may amount to, will be smashed." On the Origin of Species was an abstract of the larger manuscript and was published in 1859.All the extant correspondence surrounding Darwin's receipt of Wallace's letter and the eventual publication of the abstract of Darwin's theory a year later is gathered in this volume. The letters detail the stages in the preparation of what was to become one of the world's most famous works, On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection. They reveal the first impressions of Darwin's book given by his confidants; including Joseph Dalton Hooker, Thomas Henry Huxley, and Asa Gray.Finally, the letters relate Darwin's anxious response to the early reception of this theory by friends, family members, and prominent naturalists. This volume provides the key to understanding Darwin's remarkable efforts for more than two decades to solve one of nature's greatest riddles--the origin of species.This volume also contains a supplement (1821-1857) of letters which have been located or redated since publication of Volumes One to Six of the Correspondence.Many of these letters appear in print for the first time and provide an interesting and important complement to the correspondence published to date. ... Read more

Book Description

In a journey across four continents, acclaimed science writer Steve Olson traces the origins of modern humans and the migrations of our ancestors throughout the world over the past 150,000 years. Like Jared Diamond's Guns, Germs and Steel, Mapping Human History is a groundbreaking synthesis of science and history. Drawing on a wide range of sources, including the latest genetic research, linguistic evidence, and archaeological findings, Olson reveals the surprising unity among modern humans and "demonstrates just how naive some of our ideas about our human ancestry have been" (Discover).Olson offers a genealogy of all humanity, explaining, for instance, why everyone can claim Julius Caesar and Confucius as forebears. Olson also provides startling new perspectives on the invention of agriculture, the peopling of the Americas, the origins of language, the history of the Jews, and more. An engaging and lucid account, Mapping Human History will forever change how we think about ourselves and our relations with others. ... Read more

Reviews (31)

A Fascinating Rebuttal Against Racism
Olson's "Mapping Human History" is written in a clear, easy to understand style that makes mitochondira, haplotypes and other archana of modern genetics fairly understandable to the lay reader.

Olson explains why most geneticists believe that modern humans, no matter how different they may seem, are biologically very similar. There is no room in this book for theories about how one "race" is somehow better than another--or even for the idea that the term "race" has any meaning at all. Our cultures may have divided us, but our DNA betrays the fact that we are all descended from a small group of modern humans who lived in eastern Africa about 100,000 years ago. There simply hasn't been enough time to make us dramatically different from each other, despite what racists would have us believe.

The theory that modern humans originated in Africa fairly recently and then spread throughout the world is still, of course, hotly debated. A number of reputable scientists favor the multiregional hypothesis, which claims that modern humans evolved in various places around the world from archaic populations already living in those regions. The mutliregional hypothesis implies that the differences between modern groups are deeply rooted in the very distant past. Olson clearly disagrees with that view, and he does a good job of presenting the genetic evidence that points to a more recent African origin (sometimes called the "Out of Africa II" hypothesis).

In the course of doing so, Olson touches on many interesting points. A few of the more striking were these:

First, Olson describes recent DNA research indicating that Neanderthals were in fact a different species from our own. This is another hotly debated proprosition, and I suspect that experts could criticize the DNA analysis that Olson describes on the grounds that it's pretty hard to make sense of 35,000 year old DNA. Still, Olson makes a good case that the new results are compelling and consistent with other evidence.

Second, Olson describes the Jewish tradition that the male descendants of Aaron, the brother of Moses, will be the high priests of the Israelites. Genetic research among the kohanim (priests), who often have a surname like Cohen, Cohn, or Kahn, suggests that many of these persons are in fact descended from a common male ancestor, who may indeed have been Aaron.

Finally, Olson explains why everyone on the planet at this point probably has some genetic material contributed by Julius Caesar and Confucius, among others. It's a small world after all, at least as far as our DNA is concerned.

The only part of the book that I didn't enjoy were the last couple of chapters, which shift from the topic at hand (i.e., "mapping human history") to questions of ethics. While these issues are important, they are too complex to be explored well in the fifty or so pages that Olson alots to them, and the discussion tends to detract from the fascinating "deep history" that is the focus of the rest of the book.

Fascinating and Highly Readable
Steve Olson's Mapping Human History is a wonderful account of the journeys of modern man. The author explains all of the science involved in a very understandable and readable way so that all readers can follow this fascinating story. The narrative concerns the migration of man out of Africa and then all around the globe. Language and archeology play a part but this book focuses on the genetic clues to piece together this history which everyone alive today shares. Along the way, he debunks theories of race and any idea of biology as destiny. The author shows that we, modern humans, are all genetically related wherever we have recently hailed from. He does not shy away from the various controversies that swirl around these ideas but tackles them with great skill, particularly in the chapters focusing on the Americas. This is a very informative and entertaining book.

A MUST READ FOR THE LAYMAN
FOUND THIS BOOK THE BEST ON THE SUBJECT THAT I HAVE EVER READ! HIGHLY READABLE (NON-TECHNICAL) FOR US "LAYMAN" - WOULD NOT PART WITH MY EDITION AS I WILL BE RE-READING IT FOR SOME TIME TO COME! IF YOU HAVE ANY INTEREST IN THIS SUBJECT I HIGHLY RECOMMEND THIS THOUGHTFUL, INFORMATIVE, AND OBJECTIVE HISTORY OF THE ORIGINS AND DISTRIBUTION OF "MODERN MANKIND".

The story of our race, the human race
It is a fortunate fact of history that wrongful prejudice can scare bear the light of truthful inquiry. Olson provides this truthful inquiry in his search for the origins and migrations of the human race from the African continent of 150,000 years ago to today. For those who have or would claim a "superior race" they find quick and strong rebuke in the fact of a common racial human origin. Today, there are some seven billion people on the planet. Two thousand years ago, that figure was around 200 million. One hundred thousand years ago, that figure was around 10,000. Ten thousand humans lived in Africa 100,000 years ago. We are therefore all litterally extended brothers and sisters. This book is the story of our race told through the unbiased perspective of our mitochondrial DNA. For those straining to recall high school science, our mitochondria are power plants of our cells. In evolutionary prehistory, they merged with regular cells before humans even existed. Because of the nature in how they are passed on, their DNA can be uniquely examined with an eye toward reviewing our maternal history. In this way, the story of our mothers becomes the story of us, taking us all back to same stooped endangered group of humans living in prehistoric Africa. This book is an excellent book to be read in conjunction with other historical studies, anthropological studies or studies on human development. Olson's accessible writing style makes his points easy to grasp and his obvious enthusiasm contagiously makes you want to read on and better understand.

Wonderful Book!
Steve Olson's Mapping Human History is an excellent introduction to historical genetics, and indeed it has been called by the New Scientist as "the most balanced, accessible and up-to-date survey of the field currently available." It is written by a renowned science journalist, not a scientist, who quotes and discusses the leaders in the field in a quite readable and entertaining fashion. The book has apparently offended some people by discounting ancestry (and racist offshoots) in light of the overwhelming evidence against the concept. However its scientific credentials are impeccable. ... Read more

Book Description

Providing a comprehensive introduction to modern auction theory and its important new applications, this book is written by a leading economic theorist whose suggestions guided the creation of the new spectrum auction designs. Aimed at graduate students and professionals in economics, the volume provides the most up-to-date analysis of traditional theories of "optimal auctions" as well as newer theories of multi-unit auctions and package auctions, and shows by example how these theories are used.It explores the limitations of prominent older designs, such as the Vickrey auction design, and evaluates the practical responses to those limitations. Paul Milgrom is the Leonard and Shirley Ely Professor of Humanities and Sciences and Professor of Economics, Stanford University. He is the author of more than sixty articles and co-author of the influential textbook, Economics, Organization and Management (Prentice Hall, 1992). Professor Milgrom is a pioneer in the economic theory of auctions and co-designer of the simultaneous, multiple round auction that the FCC adopted for selling radio spectrum licenses. ... Read more

Reviews (1)

Very dry
Paul Milgrom is a great guy and a good teacher, and clearly, his knowledge of auction theory is unparalleled. But, as such, his proofs are very slick, sometimes leaving little room for intuition, and overall, the book is extremely dry. For an advanced reader in auctions, this may be the right book, but if you're simply a game theorist/economist eager to learn the basics and foundations, I would recommend Krishna's book instead. ... Read more

Book Description

Reviews (44)

Does This Book Really Answer The Question
To me the title of this book suggested a treatise essentially on the psychology of belief systems. Indeed we are presented with quite interesting material in this regard. Mr. Schermer uses the fields of psychology, evolutionary biology, sociology, philosophy, and anthropology, amongst others, to help explain belief systems.

While I found that almost all the book held my interest, it seemed somewhat disjointed. Some of the material is also quite controversial. While such matters only serve to entertain me, others may get offended - Christians may take umbrage at having their beliefs repeatedly referred to as "myths".

The book presents intriguing survey results on why people believe in God. What is most fascinating is that respondents felt that other people believe in God for reasons that differ considerably from their own. Shermer moves on into a discussion of evolutionary biology and a "belief module" (more controversy). Then, surprisingly, we move into a section concerned with traditional philosophical arguments (primarily those of Thomas Aquinas) for belief in God. When you get right down to it, no one embraces religious belief purely on the basis of philosophical arguments. Creationists will be offended by a section on their beliefs. A chunk of the book is given to the Indian Ghost Dance of the 1890s, and we read a discussion on a mathematical refutation of the recent best seller The Bible Code. Good stuff, but its like reading a collection of essays that are not often obviously related to each other.

The final chapter had me scratching my head the most. It's a section discussing the controversy surrounding Stephen Jay Gould's theories of evolution regarding necessity/contingency/chance. While poring through this I kept wondering what it had to do with religion. My question was never answered satisfactorily. Shermer forces this subject into a paean to the wonders of living in a contingent universe. He states that his abandonment of religion allows him to bask in the beauty of our magnificent universe. I get annoyed with concept that if you are religious you can't appreciate science and nature. Not every religious believer is constrained by fundamentalist young earth/intelligent design theories. I am an agnostic who was brought up a Catholic. My intense curiosity and admiration of nature was as strong when I was a believer as it is as a non-believer today.

Kudos for Shermer
I have just been introduced to Shermer's work. I think he is a beaon for clear and critical thinking. We need more like him in this world ruled by religious bigotry and irrationalism.

Two books in one...and both them very thought provoking
This is one of those excellent examples of getting something extra in the bargain.
For, when one buys this book, not only do they get a very thorough treatment of the psychological, social and historical factors which incline humans toward religion but they also get Mr. Shermer's own unique take on the matter in the form of his chapter 10 which suggests that we accept the miracle of humanity's chance existence and our own by trying to make the best of it.
If you expect by skepticism, either a cynical distance or dispassion, you will find yourself pleasantly surprised with Mr. Shermer's genuine command of the multiple disciplines he must - of needs - rely upon in building his thesis that religion is the simple byproduct of human behavior and history.
The most notable characteristic about these books is usually the invariable Rorshach quality in which the author reveals himself in his views on religion and the almighty. To the careful observer sometimes one can even see the seeds of childhood disfunction in the author's projected worldview.
Again fortunately, such is not the case here where Shermer not shows an appreciation for the outside view of religion but rather also its own subtle capacity to beauty and inspiration. Indeed, this subtle beauty informs Mr. Shermer's world view.
Don't get me wrong, if you begin this book from the vantage point of one religious world view, I would offer that that's where you'll end up. That being said, you'll arrive there a little better informed.

An excellent analysis of a puzzling topic
Why people believe in the things they believe has always interested me. Shermer, who is the head of the Skeptics Society, takes a deep look into questions of "faith" and reason, and discovers answers that may surprise you.

Personally, I found this book both lucid and elegantly written... almost reminded me of Sagan. (And that is a huge complement coming from me.)

While Shermer treads lightly on religion, his message remains clear.

I highly recommend this book to anybody who either has an open mind, or wants one.

Really disappointing.
I'm a great fan of Shermer's "Why People Believe Weird Things," so it's disheartening to have to review this book negatively. Sometimes the tone is . . . genuflectional? He does address truly novel ideas, citing Tooby & Cosmides and others, for evolutionary hypotheses for the universality of religious belief, but no unified view emerges in the book. Also, there is a completely superfluous chapter defending Stephen Gould, whom he declares as his "friend" at the beginning of the book, which reveals a probable bias: Gould hates adaptive/evolutionary points of view on social matters. No wonder Shermer drops the issue like a hot potato in this book. ... Read more

Book Description

A major work by one of the more innovative thinkers of our time, Politics of Nature does nothing less than establish the conceptual context for political ecology--transplanting the terms of ecology into more fertile philosophical soil than its proponents have thus far envisioned. Bruno Latour announces his project dramatically: "Political ecology has nothing whatsoever to do with nature, this jumble of Greek philosophy, French Cartesianism and American parks." Nature, he asserts, far from being an obvious domain of reality, is a way of assembling political order without due process. Thus, his book proposes an end to the old dichotomy between nature and society--and the constitution, in its place, of a collective, a community incorporating humans and nonhumans and building on the experiences of the sciences as they are actually practiced.

In a critique of the distinction between fact and value, Latour suggests a redescription of the type of political philosophy implicated in such a "commonsense" division--which here reveals itself as distinctly uncommonsensical and in fact fatal to democracy and to a healthy development of the sciences. Moving beyond the modernist institutions of "mononaturalism" and "multiculturalism," Latour develops the idea of "multinaturalism," a complex collectivity determined not by outside experts claiming absolute reason but by "diplomats" who are flexible and open to experimentation.

Book Description

You will get a higher score. We guarantee it.

SAT II: Mathematics, Levels IC and IIC, Sixth Edition comes complete with a targeted review of all the material on both levels of the exam, plus Kaplan's score-increasing strategies and a helpful stress management section. This powerful combination makes SAT II: Mathematics a highly effective way for you to score higher on these intensive subject tests, enabling you to approach them with confidence.

* 4 Full-Length Practice Tests with Complete Explanations

* The Most Up-to-Date Information on the Test

* An Intensive Review of All the Tested Subjects:

* Algebra
* Plane Geometry
* Coordinate Geometry
* Functions
* Solid Geometry
* Trigonometry

* Effective Strategies to Succeed on Every Type of Question ... Read more

Reviews (6)

An excellent book for prepping the SAT II maths.
This book is a really good guide to do well in the SAT II Maths section. It is concise and doesn't overboard you with information which is useless and you won't find on the real test. The book balances out the explaning with a good set of questions at the beginning to tell you what you need to improve on and end to see how you improved. The structure and content of this book is so much better than the Barron's one because the content they give you for the IC level is enough to actually do most of the IIC tesT (which means that the questions they give ya are a lot harder). Kaplan's tests mirror the actual SAT test so whatever you get in the book is going to be most likely ur score for the real thing (not including pressure and stuff). Also the explanations it gives you for each answer is crystal clear and should leave no confusion as they explain it thoroughly so that if you are given a similar question on the test again you should be able to get it correct.
The scaling of their scores is pretty correct. My score started off (currently in grade 9 now) with a score of 480 but it went up to a score of 660 which is a huge increase.
The book gives you the key/main points and formulas you need to know but in the end they twist the questions from the diagnostic from the beginnning of the chpater MAKING SURE u know how to apply the maths that they have just taught you which is good as you aren't going to see the same exact questions on the real thing.
One flaw which the kaplan book does have is that it should offer more examples/questions to give more practice before you actually take the test so that people will no what other questions are expected with that certain formula/method etc.
Overall i would recommend this too anyone hu needs help for the SAT II math (and definitely dont buy Barron's unless if you have LOTS of time to read their explanations, and not do that many questions).

Great Book for studying for the SAT II's
I was totally freaked out when I had to take the SAT II Math CI last year because I was only in tenth grade. I bought three practice books: Kaplan, REA, and Spark Notes. Kaplan was by far the best. It prepares you well and helps you figure out your strengths and weaknesses. Everyone else in my math class used only the REA book to prepare for the test, and as a result, they all scored lower than I did. Though it would be best to prepare for this test with multiple books (but DON'T use REA - the questions are very unrealistic and there are many, many errors), this book does a good job at teaching the basics. With its help I only got two questions wrong and received a 770.

Accurate representation of the real test
For some odd reason, I found it hard to find a book that accurately depicts the contents of the actual SAT II:Math IIC test. However, my search ended when I bought this book from amazon.com. This book focuses completely on the questions one can expect on the real exam and doesn't bother you with unnecessary or outdated material (like what you'd find in Barron's). The two practice tests were some of the best I've found. However, I would accredit my 800 to working with a number of books and working over a good period of time. I would recommend that anyone who is buying this book also pick up The Princeton Review's book and do their practice drill questions. If you have the time and feel you could use more practice, you can give the REA's book a shot. It isn't as realistic as this book, but it makes good practice.

In short, Kaplan is absolutely amazing: make sure its in your shopping cart!

Pretty decent book
I had the baron's one and found the questions in it very hard, even though i was pretty good at math. Got this book and found that it showed the basic essence needed and gave a more realistic
picture (simpler questions) for the SAT 2.

However, if you are rather good at math, this book would slightly
disappoint you. But still, it was worth the purchase.

This is my favorite for tests and review
The four full-length tests are probably the best feature of the book (2 Ic and 2 IIc). The review is excellent too; the study plans for Ic and IIc are well laid out. The chapters clearly tell you what to study depending on what level you're going for, and the key notes in the margins give a lot of helpful hints. In addition to the tests, each chapter has quizzes, so that there are a lot of really good practice questions. I wasted a lot of money on another book; this one is clear and sensible. Wish I'd bought it first! ... Read more

Book Description

Throughout history, the mysterious dark skies have inspired our imaginations in countless ways, influencing our endeavors in science and philosophy, religion, literature, and art. Filled with 380 full-color illustrations, Celestial Treasury shows the influence of astronomical theories and the richness of illustrations in Western civilization through the ages. The authors explore the evolution of our understanding of astronomy and weave together ancient and modern theories in a fascinating narrative. They incorporate a wealth of detail from Greek verse, medieval manuscripts and Victorian poetry with contemporary spacecraft photographs and computer-generated star charts. Celestial Treasury is more than a beautiful book: it answers a variety of questions that have intrigued scientists and laymen for centuries.

Book Description

Reviews (11)

A window on emotions
Damasio has leapt almost to the top of the philosophical pyramid with his books on feelings and consciousness. Unbound by consensus thinking, he shows how the brain and body collaborate in forming what we call the "mind". In this book he reaches back in time to the works of Baruch Spinoza, perhaps the first philosopher with insights on emotions and will. Spinoza roundly refuted the separation of mind and body postulated by Descartes - a thesis with amazing tenacity. Damasio wants to revive the teachings of Spinoza in light of modern research's recent findings verifying and enlarging the Dutch philosopher's ideas. He possesses a unique style in supporting his campaign, with an ability to mix conversational and clinical presentations with fluid ease. This is his finest effort.

Damasio blithely overturns traditional philosophy by giving the body a primary role in developing emotions. What the mind feels, the body has already expressed. Because the body and brain are so deeply integrated in their functions, the combined signals are manifested as "emotion". Our feelings of joy, sorrow and the host of other classifications we use in defining ourselves are the expressions of the interactions. What we say about feelings may be applied to the entire realm of what we call "awareness". In short, the mind represents the body - we react to its actions. Spinoza, without realizing it, was far in advance of his contemporaries.

Damasio uses the wealth of research he and others have obtained over many years to support his contentions. In line with those in the forefront of "neurophilosophy", Damasio attributes evolutionary roots for his proposal. Other animals, he reminds us, react in similar ways to similar stimuli. They haven't the ability to express their reactions in language, but the body language says it sufficiently. Human evolution merely took these root causes a step further. Language, however, and the urge to detach us from the rest of the animal kingdom led us to also separate mind and body. Damasio, following both Spinoza and the finds of cognitive science, seeks to restore the integration.

With an intelligible prose style, enhanced by diagrams and line drawings, this book is a treasure of information. The questions he raises, while jarring to anyone steeped in traditional philosophy, need answering. He's never above noting where more work is required and posits topics to be investigated. The extensive bibliography is valuable in understanding what we know and what remains to be revealed. These revelations, Damasio reminds us, apply further afield than academic disputes over philosophical issues. The view of mind and body underlies most of our concepts of justice, government, public education and social behaviour generally. What gives this book its ultimate value is what basis we apply in addressing these issues. If traditional philosophy's foundatio