A Cure for Dystopianism
Sunday, March 25th, 2012Or, at least a palliative. Civilizational progress past and future.
Archive for March 25th, 2012
New Books….
Sunday, March 25th, 2012
Iconoclast: A Neuroscientist Reveals How to Think Differently by Gregory Berns
All In: The Education of General David Petraeus by Paula Broadwell, with Vernon Loeb
Two new ones. Finally purchased a copy of All In which I previously discussed here – worth reading is a review by, Col. Joseph Collins at SWJ, and a post from Paula Broadwell at Line of Departure. Will review in the near future.
Iconclast I discovered being highly recommended on my co-blogger Scott Shipman’s new site, To Be or to Do under his To Be or To Do Recommended Reading Installment 2 link. Of Iconoclast, Scott writes:
This may be the best book dealing with brain-function correlated to behavior that I’ve read. Many others have provided lengthy reviews of his thesis which can be summed up as: perception, courage, and social skills with no small dose of youth (where youth is 30ish) help create an iconoclast. I have only two complaints about the book. The last chapter deals with drugs and the attendant effects on our perception, lack of fear, and social abilities. This chapter seemed disjointed and inconsistent with the overall body of the book. The second complaint was Dr. Berns’ drum-beat on youth and iconoclasm. While there may be fMRI studies to back-up much of the data, what are we to make of folks over 30 (and sometimes much older) who become iconoclasts? The question is rhetorical, and the merits of the work out-weigh these minor objections. Highly recommended if you’re curious about the neurology of our behavior.
That was good enough for me, but Iconoclast will have to gestate in my antilibrary for a while. Too many books ahead of it in the queue.
