New Books….
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.
March 25th, 2012 at 11:31 am
[…] is the original: zenpundit.com » Blog Archive » New Books…. « #9: Drift: The Unmooring of American Military Power #7: Fifty Shades Freed: Book Three […]
March 25th, 2012 at 8:53 pm
Iconoclast sounds like a must-read for me! Thanks for noting it!!
March 25th, 2012 at 9:52 pm
Thanks for sharing the quickie review!
March 26th, 2012 at 5:08 am
Hi Wendy! Hi Scott!
.
Anytime. It’s what I do 🙂
November 10th, 2012 at 4:28 am
Not at all surprised that Petraeus became involved with Paula Broadwell. One look at her biography says it all, self-promoting, self-aggrandizing. Since when does white side Military Intelligence work count as “black ops”? completely laughable.
Sad day for Petraeus’s family and the intelligence community.
November 10th, 2012 at 4:53 am
Agreed regarding the Petraeus family, they don’t deserve this kind of attention. I get your point, fair enough. I don’t know Paula Broadwell, but….
.
Carl Prine found kind words for her today – which caught my attention – and suggested that the events being reported was not the whole picture of Broadwell that should be considered. Carl has often proven to have more backstory than most, nor frankly do a I really care about the bedroom shennanigans. The real issues are a) WOW – was this recklessly self-destructive for 2 high profile individuals, and b) the story of the WH not being informed of the FBI investigating the CIA Director (!) until yesterday is utterly nonsensical.
.
The CIA badly needed a strong, visionary, competent hand as Director for a long haul tenure and that ain’t happening now
November 10th, 2012 at 4:55 am
And the book BTW was terrible, I couldn’t finish it and I’ve slogged through Arthur Schlesinger, Jr’s hagiographic crap
November 10th, 2012 at 5:39 am
Zen,
Think my previous post came across as more angry than I intended. I apologize. I remembered feeling excited about the book when I first heard about it, then I read her self-congratulatory bio on her site and that gave me my first inkling of the kind of person she could be (insinuating involvement with black ops as a vanilla MI officer). the fact that she touted her private “exclusive” access to Petraeus for a long time in writing this book and traveled with him extensively, by herself, gave me some disquieting thoughts. thought she really leveraged this “access” to propel herself into celebrity status among national security writers. disappointed that my intuitions became true…
this crap with leaking info needs to stop. they need to institute harsher punishments for political appointees
and SEALs alike (7 guys from DevGru including one from the UBL raid recently punished for leaking classified info)
glad to hear your thoughts on the book itself. i’ll take it off my Amazon wishlist.
November 10th, 2012 at 6:46 am
No need to apologize. The politicos have no respect for national security anymore in the past 2 admins if a transient domestic political advantage is at stake and their example inevitably trickles down. The situation is depressing, not your doing though