Editorial Review

The bestselling book that asks what dogs know and how they think, now in paperback.The answers will surprise and delight you as Alexandra Horowitz, a cognitive scientist, explains how dogs perceive their daily worlds, each other, and that other quirky animal, the human. Horowitz introduces the reader to dogs’ perceptual and cognitive abilities and then draws a picture of what it might be like to be a dog. What’s it like to be able to smell not just every bit of open food in the house but also to smell sadness in humans, or even the passage of time? How does a tiny dog manage to play successfully with a Great Dane? What is it like to hear the bodily vibrations of insects or the hum of a fluorescent light? Why must a person on a bicycle be chased? What’s it like to use your mouth as a hand? In short, what is it like for a dog to experience life from two feet off the ground, amidst the smells of the sidewalk, gazing at our ankles or knees?

Inside of a Dog explains these things and much more. The answers can be surprising—once we set aside our natural inclination to anthropomorphize dogs. Inside of a Dog also contains up-to-the-minute research—on dogs’ detection of disease, the secrets of their tails, and their skill at reading our attention—that Horowitz puts into useful context. Although not a formal training guide, Inside of a Dog has practical application for dog lovers interested in understanding why their dogs do what they do. With a light touch and the weight of science behind her, Alexandra Horowitz examines the animal we think we know best but may actually understand the least. This book is as close as you can get to knowing about dogs without being a dog yourself. ... Read more

Reviews

It's good, but not fantastic. Not many spoilers in this review., September 17, 2009
After having read this book weeks ago (advanced copy), I was left a little unsatisfied. I'd give it 3.5 stars if could.

It's more of a cursory glance at canine cognitive ethology rather than a definitive volume, but if you're looking for a good introductory to canine cognitive ethology, this would be a great starter. The anecdotes are sweet and the science is pretty good, and written in a way that the regular Joe Dog Guardian can read it without breaking his brain.

HOWEVER. There is one VERY glaring "scientific" experiment that I feel she used for a bad conclusion, a conclusion whose inclusion of the flawed scientific experiment betrays the entire premise of the book itself.

In the section on "Hero Dogs" (dogs that have responded to emergencies and saved the lives of their owners and people in general), Horowitz details what she calls a "clever experiment" with dogs where

"owners conspired with the researchers to feign emergencies in the presence of their dogs, in order to see how the dogs responded. In one scenario, owners were trained to fake a heart attack, complete with gasping, a clutch of the chest, and a dramatic collapse. In the second scenario, owners yelped as a bookcase (made of particleboard) descended on them and seemed to pin them on the ground. In both cases, owners' dogs were present, and the dogs had been introduced to a bystander nearby--perhaps a good person to inform if there has been an emergency.

In these contrived setups, the dogs acted with interest and devotion, but not as though there was an emergency...

...In other words, not a single dog did anything that remotely helped their owners out of the predicaments. The conclusion that one has to take from this is that dogs simply do not naturally recognize or react to an emergency situation--one that could lead to danger or death." (pp.239-240)

I really don't understand how she could have come to this conclusion after having written over 200 pages on how a dog sees, smells and relates to its world (the "umwelt" of a dog). She didn't consider that the dogs knew that their owners were faking? She wrote herself that a dog can sense the most minute changes in a person's own body chemistry, right down to sensing cancer and other things like an increase in heart rate or adrenaline. A person faking a heart attack isn't going to have the same body chemistry/physical changes that a person having a REAL heart attack is going to have, so in a sense--there is no faking a heart attack around your dog (believe me, I've tried, LOL--it was only playing/testing, but none of my dogs seemed to care if I plopped over in bed, "dead"). Same goes for adrenaline levels when you're in immediate danger, like when you're drowning (and I believe this was one of the examples she used just before this horrible "deduction" of hers; a dog saved the life of a child that was going to drown). And if a person was faking being hurt under a particleboard bookcase, I'm pretty sure that the dog could sense that, too.

Anyway. That was the only part of the book that REALLY got me going "Hmmmnnn...no." Other than that, it's a good read, but left me wanting more (a whole lot of it sucks you in, but then you're left with a little bit of an unsatisfied thirst for more science and more talk about how dogs are in the world; the end chapter seemed a little rushed to me, too).

It's a Dog's World, October 13, 2009
Scientifically, we might know a lot more about rats than we do about dogs. There are some experimental labs that have dogs as subjects, but lab rats get a lot of scientific attention. Dogs get a lot of domestic attention, but scientific study of dogs, and the ways they get along with humans and with other dogs, has not been a high concern. That may be because we think we know dogs; they are frank and open, and we live closely with them. Alexandra Horowitz thinks we don't know enough, and some of what we know is wrong, and she is out to change our perception of dogs and to do it scientifically. She has to work at making herself a detached observer; she might be a psychologist who has studied cognition in humans, dogs, bonobos, and rhinoceroses, but among the first sentences of her book _Inside of a Dog: What Dogs See, Smell, and Know_ (Scribner) is, "I am a dog person." Is she ever. She didn't deliberately make Pumpernickel, her mixed breed live-in friend (she is an advocate for adopting mutts), a subject of scientific study, but Pump was her entrance, for instance, to the dog park where she could film the interactions of other dogs for acute detailed study later. She gives loving anecdotes of the late Pump in every chapter to illustrate her more objective findings, nicely showing how her scientific examination of dogs paid off in her understanding of her own dog. There are people who worry that scientific examination of any phenomenon takes away the mystery and specialness of the phenomenon, and among the fine lessons in this amusing and enlightening book is that this is far from true.

Dogs do not sense the world we do. To take one of Horowitz's examples, a rose for humans is a thing of visual and olfactory beauty, and also has connotations of a love gift. Dogs are having none of this. It is just another plant among all the plants that surround it; it does not look attractive, and unless some dog has urinated on it recently, it does not smell attractive. Otherwise, the rose doesn't exist. The dog's world is one largely of smells. Everyone knows that dogs are better at detecting odors than we are. It isn't just that they can smell more scents, at thinner concentrations, than we; it's that they gaze at the world by sniffing, and it presents a very different world from ours. Smell, for dogs, has plenty of meanings, but one of them is time. A strong spell is new, a fading one is old. Not only that, but the future may be borne on a breeze if the dog is walking upwind. In scents, the dog doesn't just experience the current scene in an olfactory way, "...but also a snatch of the just-happened and the up-ahead. The present has a shadow of the past and a ring of the future about it." Dogs are evolutionarily descended from wolves, and sometimes dog owners are advised to treat their dogs as lower-caste members of a pack. Horowitz prescribes caution in such interpretations. Dogs are not wolves and have cast away many wolf traits during their evolution. A person (non-wolf) attempting to subdue a dog (non-wolf) in wolf fashion is missing what is special about the human-dog bond. Dogs, for instance, like eye contact; wolves avoid it. There are many experiments described here (some of which Horowitz has herself been in charge of), and one of them involves "gaze following". Dogs can look at our eyes, and can tell where we are looking, so they look over that way, too. The sections of the book that are the most fun are the ones on play. Dogs play more than wolves do, and unlike most animals, they play as adults. It is a bit of a mystery; it isn't essential for dogs to play to get their needed social skills, and it does cost energy and the risk of injury. Horowitz describes the play cues dogs give that can only be seen by humans using very slow video replays, but which keep the play non-aggressive for the participating dogs. Dogs are good at following these rules; a strapping wolfhound and a tiny Chihuahua can negotiate a play session efficiently, with the former handicapping itself to enjoy the mock aggressiveness of the latter.

Horowitz has provided a useful service in her brightly-written summary of experiments and current theories on the minds of dogs. I have an idea that people keep dogs around not just because of their goofy affection for us, or because they are so entertaining, but simply because they are interesting. It is fun to see how a creature who has evolved an intelligence different from our own gets along in the world. Horowitz's book helps explain that interest, and heighten it.

Could not finish it, September 19, 2009
I expected to love this book. Unfortunately, it leaves a lot to be desired.

First, there is surprisingly little information in it. The author touches on each subject so briefly that only the most superficial observations can be made. Dog body language gets maybe two pages and includes such revelations as the meaning of a tucked tailed (discomfort and/or submission). Is there a dog owner in the world who doesn't already know that? Note: if that's new to you and you own a dog, stop reading this review and find a dog trainer immediately. In the 250 pages I managed to read, I found two things of interest: the description of canine vision, and speculation on a potential flaw in experiments on dog intelligence (to wit: dogs know that humans are great providers of food, so if a dog that gives up on the puzzle in front of him and runs over to the researcher for help, maybe he's being smart, not dumb).

Second, the author spends way too much time bemoaning human chauvinism. Apparently, all research into animal behavior is done to shore up our belief that humans are the rightful masters of the earth.

Third, the tone of this book is insistently, forcibly whimsical. Sometimes it hits the right note, and I did find myself laughing out lot a few times, particularly at an anecdote about a doberman put to work guarding a collection of valuable teddy bears. Unfortunately, it's more often grating, and I found myself rolling my eyes at the little vignettes about the author's dog that start every chapter. It truly pains me to write that, as love between a dog and an owner is such a wonderful thing.

Fourth, the text has some odd contradictions, one which is noted by the reviewer below me. The author also starts one chapter raving about dogs' almost preternatural ability to understand our intentions -- and supports this assertion by noting how easy it is to fool a dog into thinking you've thrown a tennis ball.

Finally, I came to the point where I had to put the book down. The author begins to describe dogs' sense of personal space, which she gets almost entirely wrong. She makes a common mistake in saying that dogs have a much smaller radius of personal space than we do. This may be true of ultra-friendly, well-socialized dogs like many retrievers, but it is *not* the norm. Dogs are in fact extremely concerned with personal space, and much of what we know about their communication involves conveying the boundaries of their "bubbles".

The final straw was here: "Repeating itself on sidewalks across the country is a scene that demonstrates the clash of our sense of personal space: the sight of two dog owners as they stand six feet apart, straining to keep their leashed dogs from touching, while the dogs strain mightily to touch each other. Let them touch!" This is horribly bad advice. There are a thousand reasons why two strange dogs should not be allowed to greet each other unrestrainedly, first and foremost that lunging towards another dog is actually very aggressive behavior. Dogs have a plethora of signals indicating that their interest is respectful, including look aways, medium-to-low tail carriage, and a sideways approach. A dog that jumps straight up into another dog's business is socially inept at best, and intending harm at worst.

Instead of this book, I would recommend almost anything by Temple Grandin (who isn't always right either, but has a fascinating perspective), Turid Rugaas, Karen Pryor, or Brenda Aloff.

Best Dog Book Ever, September 17, 2009
As an avid reader of dog literature I approach each new entry in this field with a mix of trepidation and eagerness. Will it merely be a rehash of things I already know? Will it be a sophmoric jumble of memoir and whimsy? Or will this be the book that truly broadens my understanding of the world of canids? Inside of a Dog falls into the last category - plus some.
This book is hands down the finest exploration of canid intelligence that I have ever read. Horowitz writes with a crisp, almost puckish tone - it draws the reader in effortlessly. The book is a delightful blend of an examination of the latest developments in the world of scientific study of dog cognition, and Horowitz's own experiences with her dog as she became one of the scientists who study this animal.
She is one of those writers of whom you think that they could make anything seem interesting. It is to our benefit that she has chosen to do this with dogs.

Fascinating and poetic, September 27, 2009
This is a fascinating book, full of terrific details and interesting research about dogs. So many of the specific elements that she describes still stick in my head. There's great material in here, for instance, about dog's noses and how they smell, and how much they encounter the world through scent and odor. It's not simply that Horowitz tells us that dogs have a powerful sense of smell; it's that she goes well beyond that to help us think about how different their sense of time must be, for instance, since they are smelling old smells along with new ones at the same time. That's just one example of many. The book is chock full of the latest research about dogs, but told in a winning and delightful manner.

That's worth stressing: the writing in this book is great. It's colorful and idiosyncratic. Sometimes the syntax of a sentence is intriguing all on its own. The book is fun to read, in part, just because Horowitz writes so darn well. And, I should add, with a fair bit of whimsy and playfulness. She is a talent as a writer, as well as a scientist. And she makes the science accessible, interesting, and sometimes laugh-worthy.

But the book is also wonderful because it's so full of Horowitz's own enthusiasm for how great dogs are. She's a scientist, but she's hardly clinical. Her excitement about dogs comes pouring out in the small praise-of-dog moments that abound in the book. I feel like I finished the book not only knowing more about dogs (and impressed by all the things that Horowitz knows), but wanting to spend more time with dogs, looking at other people's dogs on the street, and thinking about when we might be able to get a dog of our own again. Her interest in the dog-human relationship -- which is so much the focus in the last chunk of the book -- spills over with her joy in it, and it's an infectious joy.

I can't recommend this book highly enough. I plan to give it as a gift this year to all my dog-owning and dog-loving friends!

Some nice stories, November 5, 2009
Sadly, this is one of many, many books that are filled with assertions, not facts. We now have an enormous amount of information about dogs thanks to scientists who decided that the reason for not studying dogs because they weren't in their "natural habitat" is incorrect. Living with humans IS a dog's natural habitat. They are, in fact, our first domesticated animal. Trustworthy books on the dog include those by Vilmos Csanyi, If Dogs Could Talk, or Lindsay, the three volume treatise, the Handbook of Applied Dog Behavior and Training.

But even better is to do your own work understanding your dog. Buy the Brenda Aloff book, Canine Body Language or the Abrantes book, Encyclopedia of Canine Behavior. Then watch your dog, study your dog, see what he does when presented with various stimuli.

As to horrible mistakes based on, perhaps, just her dog (the fallacy of reasoning from the particular to the general) is Horowitz's comment on meeting another dog. She's right AND she's wrong. When two dogs meet, they SHOULD be allowed to do the "sniff test," etc. on a loose lead. Why? Dogs that are restrained may respond negatively out of what some believe is the "frustration" of not being able to make a dog-like "meet and greet." This is very similar to fence behavior between two dogs which presents the same difficulties for the dog. Two dogs on opposite sides of the fence often start barking and snapping. When allowed to meet without the fence in between, there is a far more subdued "conference." As a member of a rescue group, I have witnessed this over and over and have stopped using the "time-tested" recommended "first have them meet on opposite sides of a fence" approach to introducing one dog to another (A far better approach is to find a partner and walk the two dogs together for a mile or so.)

So her recommendation is, on the surface, a good one, loose lead meeting, good. Unfortunately, two completely clueless dog owners (remember, I'm in rescue) can't possibly tell if their dog or the other one is "targeting" the other dog or just harmlessly anxious to meet this canine passerby. "Oh, but my dog/other dog is wagging their tail." Ah, wagging. Here's an example where a little studying of the Abrantes book would pay dividends. Wagging comes in lots of varieties. Is the tail going around madly in circles or is it high and stiff and wagging back and forth slowly like a metronome...it makes a difference. Did one of the dogs avert their eyes? How about the approach? Did one dog attempt to approach the other dog from the side or are they both coming towards one another head to head. And of course there are the tailless Dobies and Rotties, so you need to look at other signals, ears, lips, body language. I don't normally allow my dogs to meet other dogs on the street because there is too much risk and very little reward. If you like to walk your dog on busy streets, teach your dog to "heel" or "on by" when meeting another dog. See, for example Koehler or Patricia Burnham.

All in all this book is like most of the mass media junk, sitting on shelves in your favorite book store, either filled with anecdotal information or making statements unsupported by anything other than the uncited "study." There are good books on dogs, but they are far and few between, the McConnell series comes to mind as well as Be the Dog by Duno, The Dog's Mind, by Fogle or the Domestic Dog by Serpell.

But if you have a dog, then you really have the best available information curled up next to you. Just don't draw conclusions based on "human logic" or what's more accurately called anthropomorphisms. What I mean, for example, is the call we often get (by the wife) about a recently adopted dog, that the dog is urinating in front of the husband as soon as he walks in the door. And the husband (it's invariably the husband) is sure that the dog is doing it for spite and no matter how loudly he screams at the dog, the dog continues to pee as soon as he walks in the house. Well I am sure most of you know what's going on here. Dogs don't do anything for spite (their range of emotions are far simpler than ours). The dog is being deferential. It's what dogs do to show submissiveness to a senior, more dominant animal. So we tell the wife to tell the husband to stop screaming at the dog and make believe he actually is happy to see the pup...or feel free to return the dog to us and go out and get a nice stuffed animal

As to this book, unless you're in the book store, sipping a latte while skimming the book (and looked up the reviews via wi-fi...or you're a relative...pass...

FABULOUS E-BOOK FOR ALL DOG GUARDIANS!, August 9, 2010
I am a long time dog guardian and dog lover and have read many dog-related books. This book is about the best I have ever experienced in terms of improving one's understanding of dogs and their actions. Not only was the book well-written in an interesting and easy to understand style, the audiobook was also exceptionally well spoken. I learned many new things from this book, and I also appreciated the many references to dog rescue groups and the promotion of mixed breed dogs at shelters/rescues over pure breed dogs as family pets.

Nosing Out the World, April 23, 2010
Alexandra Horowitz, the author of this book, has a PhD in cognitive science and studied cognition in rhinos, bonobos and dogs. As the order indicates, she came to dogs last as objects of scientific study and in this her career mirrors the efforts of cognitive scientists generally who (as she notes in her book) have only turned seriously to dogs in the last twenty-five or so years, perhaps because the nearly omnipresent dog was mistakenly thought to be a simple and uncomplicated creature. As most dog owners will tell you, nothing could be more wrongheaded than to think of dogs as simpletons of the animal kingdom.

Using the findings of many dog studies, mostly from the last thirty years, Horowitz shows that dogs are marvelously complex creatures whose senses and brains are exquisitely attuned to their environment, a large part of which is humans. Dogs know their world well, and humans intimately. Part of this comes from the intense focus that dogs bring to bear on us and part from the array of extraordinary sensory equipment that they use to focus. Dogs' sense of smell, for example, is (practically speaking) infinitely better than ours and easily able to detect chemical "tells" about our emotions, state of mind, and past and present activities.

Horowitz takes us on a grand tour of dogs' sensory apparatus and how it compares to the human equivalent. She explores what is known of their social behavior, including the many signs and signals they use in dealing with one another and with us; and she discusses their emotions and psychological processes, including cognition and the possibility of canine self-awareness.

Horowitz's overriding purpose is to let the reader share something of how a dog actually perceives, interacts with, and communicates with the world and other creatures. She repeatedly points out that we do a disservice to the complexity and uniqueness of dogs when we either anthropomorphize them (see them as limited humans) or treat them as insensate creatures which exist merely for our convenience.

Horowitz does all this in a direct and interesting style that neither over complicates things nor talks down to the general audience for which it is intended. She gives many clear factual examples to illustrate her points (providing factoids for those inclined to amaze their friends). With her main narrative she also mixes frequent mini-essays talking about her personal relationship with her obviously much loved dog Pumpernickel (usually called "Pump"), revealing herself as a dog lover as well as a dog scientist. She also provides simplified notes for those who may wish to explore her sources.

This is an excellent, well-written and delightful book.

Popular book, if you want science..., October 7, 2009
A scientific book on the dog's mind is 'Canine Ergonomics' by William Helton (2009).Canine Ergonomics: The Science of Working Dogs. Reacting to other viewer's comments, keep in mind that this is a popular book. If you are looking for a scientific book on how the dog's mind works read Canine Ergonomics.

Inside a Dog...still unsure, November 1, 2009
The book was strong on anecdote and personal experience but a bit short on hard science and firm vet science. ... Read more

Editorial Review

Why do our headaches persist after we take a one-cent aspirin but disappear when we take a fifty-cent aspirin?

Why do we splurge on a lavish meal but cut coupons to save twenty-five cents on a can of soup?

When it comes to making decisions in our lives, we think we're making smart, rational choices. But are we?

In this newly revised and expanded edition of the groundbreaking New York Times bestseller, Dan Ariely refutes the common assumption that we behave in fundamentally rational ways. From drinking coffee to losing weight, from buying a car to choosing a romantic partner, we consistently overpay, underestimate, and procrastinate. Yet these misguided behaviors are neither random nor senseless. They're systematic and predictable—making us predictably irrational.

Reviews

Made me think through some things I'd overlooked about market behavior
I have been thinking about economics seriously for nearly 30 years. Classical economics is built to no small degree on the notion that people will generally act in their own best self interest, after rationally and intelligently examining their options. This fit my world view fine in my first career as an engineer (BS and MS in Electrical Engineering).

From my 2nd Career as a Business Development person (MBA), I began to have to deal with people's tendency to not entirely think things through.

Here in this book, we have a professor who runs socioeconomic tests on his MBA students. These students are smart enough, worldly enough, experienced enough, and educated enough to approximate the standard economic assumptions and produce reasonably rational behavior.

Guess what. Even among broad experiments conducted on multiple MBA classes over time, one can predictably pre-bias the outcome of a particular run of a socioeconomic experiment by what seeds you plant in the class members' minds before the experiment. For example, in one experiment in estimating prices, the author requires his students to write the last two digits of their social security numbers on the top of the paper. Simply the act of writing a high number (e.g., 88) versus a low number (e.g., 08) produced statistically significant correlatable influences on the students' later price estimates. Those compelled to write "88" at the top of their papers would reliably estimate higher prices than those compelled to write "08" at the top of their papers, to a statistically significant degree.

Extrapolating to "real life." Watching Fox News will tend to make you more conservative without you knowing it. Watching MSNBC news will tend to make you more liberal without you knowing it.

If you want to understand "real truth," you are just going to have to do a little more than self-select your news feeds. You are going to have to seriously consider a diversity of viewpoints.

Moreover, if you have Social Darwinist beliefs as I once did, you may need to re-think the concept of the Poverty Trap. Early pre-conditioning really does make a difference.

Here is the way I think of it as an Engineer. Classical Economic Theory is analogous to Classical Newtonian Physics. There is nothing badly wrong with it, and it is a good approximation for most real world problems at the middle of the distribution.

However, General Relativity is indeed more correct that Classical Newtonian Physics, and the additional knowledge makes a real difference in certain special cases. And, those special cases are sometimes the really important ones. Likewise, Behavioral Economics is adding something very valuable to our knowledge of Classical Economics.

Read this only if you are brave enough to contemplate that the world might be a little more complex than we wish it were.

An excellent book which provides valuable insights
This book and Dan Ariely have recieved a lot of media attention, so I approached the book with some skepticism, thinking that it might be overhyped. I'm pleased to report that my skepticism turned out to be unwarranted.

The book has many strengths, the main one being that it convincingly presents many ways people are wired and/or conditioned to be irrational, usually without even being aware of it. This eye-opening revelation can be a bit disheartening, but the good news is that we can fix at least some of this irrationality by being aware of how it can arise and then making a steady effort to override it or compensate for it. That's not an easy task, but it can be done. As a simple example, I've programmed a realistic exercise schedule into my PDA, and I've been very consistent with my exercise because of that. The PDA imposes a discipline on me which I couldn't otherwise impose on myself (as I know from experience).

The book is also well written, and I would even say enjoyable to read. The many experiments described in the book are presented in a lively way which elicits interest, and Ariely goes into just the right amount of detail -- enough to convey the basic experimental designs, results, and plausible interpretations, without boring the reader by getting into esoteric points which are more appropriate for journal papers.

The one criticism I have of the book, which applies to most of Western pscyhology, is that most of the described experiments used US college students as subjects. That raises a serious question regarding the extent to which the results can be generalized to people of the same age who aren't college students, people of other ages, and people outside the US. Study of cultural psychology reveals that differences due to these factors can be profound, and Ariely himself notes a Korean study where such differences were observed, but he doesn't really elaborate on the point.

Despite this one criticism, I think this is an excellent and authoritative book, and among the better ones in the "why smart people do dumb things" genre, so I highly recommend it. The insights revealed are both fascinating and practical, if you can muster the discipline to apply them.

Brilliant look into behavioral economics
I enjoyed this book in much the same way I enjoyed Freakonomics. Whereas Freakonomics explores real-life examples of economics, Ariely's book discusses experiments that demonstrate principles of behavioral economics.

Ariely shows through a series of experiments that people are not the rational consumers of legend. People predictably overvalue things they already own, go after free things even if there's a better deal available, and do many other things that don't make sense. People's reactions are consistent, thus predictable, even if they're not optimal from a pure economic viewpoint - hence the title of "Predictably Irrational."

Throughout the book, Ariely discusses how the failure of many economists to consider behavioral economics has led companies and governments to bad decisions. Policies that seem appropriate if everyone were to make emotionless decisions fall apart when you consider that people are, well, human.

In Ariely's acknowledgments, he lists several people who helped him figure out how to write in "non-academese." Having read many books written by professors, I'd say he received excellent assistance in this area. His writing style is engaging and easy to follow.

This was one of the best books I read this year.

This was really an eye-opener
We like to believe that we are rational. Many investment philosophies are based on efficient market theory, which assumes that market participants are well-informed and act rationally. I always found efficient market theory to be flawed, because when I looked at individual investors, I would get surprised more and more every day by how irrational their behavior was. So how it is possible for markets to be efficient, when most investors I know are completely irrational? Well, this book has some really good explanations.

The author of this book shows us that even though we believe that we act in a rational way, in reality we act in predictably irrational way. As a result of this irrationality, we frequently make poor decisions with our money, life partners, and health. For example, we tend to overvalue things that we own. We might be made to believe that something works even when it doesn't. A placebo is perfect example.

This book was really an eye-opening experience. We all do the things the author talks about. As I read this book, I kept catching myself and saying, "Yes, I did this, too." I enjoyed reading this book, and I would recommend it.

- Mariusz Skonieczny, author of Why Are We So Clueless about the Stock Market? Learn how to invest your money, how to pick stocks, and how to make money in the stock market

Lots to think about
It is a fantastic read, some people have a problem with the authors' assumptions and methods but I think they are trying to dig too deep and they appear to have forgotten this is a new way of thinking. The only thing I would like to see different in the book is more detail on the experiments, some of them we read the results and their interpretation of the data, but it would be nice to see how the info was gleaned.

Phenomenal Book
Probably the best book I've read yet on behavioral economics. Each chapter is well organized around a specific topic and incredibly thought provoking. I highly recommend it. ... Read more

Editorial Review

With a new chapter. The phenomenal bestseller—over 1.5 million copies sold—is now a major PBS special.

Winner of the Pulitzer Prize, Guns, Germs, and Steel is a brilliant work answering the question of why the peoples of certain continents succeeded in invading other continents and conquering or displacing their peoples. This edition includes a new chapter on Japan and all-new illustrations drawn from the television series. 32 illustrations. ... Read more

Reviews

I guess some folks don't have the patience, July 13, 1999
I think some of the reviewers here didn't read the book closely enough to understand the context of some of Diamond's arguments. He never says that biogeographical effects are the ONLY causes history. His main purpose is the search for the ultimate, extremely general causes for the broadest of trends in human history and prehistory.

By the time the Mongols roared across Asia, or the Moguls invaded India, many cultures around the world already changed so much that bioregional factors, though seminal in the creation of these broadest trends, weren't nearly as important as the political, religious and economic ones. He is not ignoring religion and so on but, he states plainly several times that isn't his focus. He is looking for ultimate causes--before humans had extremely advanced mental concepts like religion.

He also wanted to point out the devastating influence of disease on history. It was surely the European germs that did most of the conquering of Native Americans. The guns and horses were almost incidental. Later on, once Europeans had established themselves, then we can focus on economic and political systems. But we can't ignore the effects of the diseases unleashed on the Americas. These plagues gave the Europeans a very lucky boost that catapulted them beyond the wealth and power of China, India or the Middle East--long before the Industrial Revolution made this gap obvious.

Another thing that some people seem to be having trouble with is his assertions about the native intelligence of tribal peoples around the world. (If you read the book, you notice that he is not just saying this about the New Guineans.)

He takes pains to point out what he means by this. He not talking about some mysterious genetic superiority of tribal peoples. It's all straight up culture. Tribal culture forces people to be better generalists than they'd have to be in literate civilizations. They can't rely on embedded support structures like books for memory or experts for obscure fields. They have to be pretty good at a lot things. Otherwise they die. They have to be better at memorizing things because they can't count on computers or books to remember things for them. Living in a dangerous, wild environment makes them cautious and aware of all that is going on around them. That was all he meant. The circumstance of tribal peoples force them, only in very broad ways and only on an individual basis, to be smarter and more curious than civilized people.

And in the end it does them no good. Because civilized societies are SMARTER than tribal societies. That is why tribal society has been steadily disappearing over the millenia. They just can't compete.

Finally, of course the book is repetitive. In fact he sums up his argument in the preface of the book. You needn't even read the rest if you don't want to. The rest of the book consists of him reiterating his points from different angles to point out the objections he has managed to answer and the many questions that still remain. He is just following scholarly practice and exposition--just to make things clear that he has thought about this.

He knows that his theory can't explain everything. In the epilog he points out that China, India and the Middle East are good counter examples to his idea. They each had an expansionist rise to great power--a time when they were unafraid to try new ideas and explore new ways of doing things. If the highly complex forces of economics, politics, religion had arrayed themselves differently. We might all be speaking Arabic now. Or Cantonese. Europe was just lucky to be in the right place at the right time for things to come together as they did.

Science in the service of History, October 4, 2000
In one compelling volume, the famous biologist Jared Diamond tackles the most important question of global history: Why did Europeans come to dominate the New World?

This question has been answered by others before; Diamond's idea that Europe's geography is the cause ("geographical determinism") has also been proposed before. Any student of history can drag up a case or two of this thesis. Baron Montaigne, for example, proposed that Europe's primacy stemmed from its superior government, which could be derived directly from the coolness of its climate.

The deep significance of this book is that Diamond's thesis is not simply idle speculation. He proves that the Eurasian land mass had by far the best biological resources with which to develop agricultural societies, and was thus more able to form large, coherent, and powerful social entities.

To support this idea, Diamond introduces thorough set of well-researched data on what kinds of plants and animals are necessary to support a farming society. He investigates the biological resources available to potential farmers in all parts of the world. The people of Eurasia had access to a suite of plants and animals that provided for their needs. Potential farmers in other parts of the world didn't-- and so their fertile soil went untilled.

After establishing this strong foundation, Diamond falls into repeating ideas about the formation of large-scale societies. These ideas, while unoriginal, are still compelling, and Diamond presents them in a very clear and well-written way.

His other major original contribution comes when he discusses the diseases that helped the Old World conquer the New. Building on his earlier chapters dealing with Old-World domesticated animals, he shows that these very animals were the sources of the major plagues (such as smallpox) which virtually annihilated New World populations. The fact that Old Worlders had immunities to these diseases was a direct result of their agricultural head-start.

Along with these monumental contributions to History, this book has its drawbacks. If you're looking for a narrative explaining Great People, Great Events, or Modern Ideas, you will be sadly disappointed. Diamond's thesis offhandedly assumes that it is difficult to believe Shakespeare's plays or Newton's laws could have been written by hunter-gatherers.

If you are looking for reasons why Europe came to dominate the world, rather than, say, China, Diamond presents mixed results. He mentions the 14th century self-isolation of China, but does not analyze it. He also brings up the odd theory about the relationship between the coastline lengths of Europe and China and trade potential; this idea is provably wrong.

If you are looking for a book that explains the world's history of the past 500 years, look elsewhere. Guns, Germs and Steel exhausts itself by effectively, coherently, fundamentally, definitively, and entertainingly explaining the preceeding 15,000.

I do not hesitate to recommend this book to anyone with an interest in world history. The scholarship is first-rate, and the thesis is incredibly significant. The technical details, while complete, are presented in a very easy to understand way, and Diamond's writing style is fun and engaging. It fully deserved the Pulitzer prize.

A strong theory convincingly argued, but marred by bias, January 24, 2001
According to Diamond, four factors are responsible for all historical developments: 1) availability of potential crops and domestic animals, 2) the orientation of continental axis to facilitate the spread of agriculture, 3) transfer of knowledge between continents, and 4) population size.

Diamond states that "those four sets of factors constitute big environmental differences that can be quantified objectively and that are not subject to dispute." Fair enough, but what *is* subject to dispute is that there might be some other factors at work. Thomas Sowell in Race and Culture does a good job of developing the thesis that the exchange of information among European cultures, facilitated by Europe's plentiful navigable rivers, was the key to Europe's technological and economic rise. David Landes in the Wealth and Poverty of Nations attributes China's conscious decision in the 1400's to isolate itself form other nations as the key event (decision) that caused it to lose it's technological advantage and fall behind Europe. (Diamond briefly touches on 15th Century China in the final chapter, but manages to boil this as well down to an accident of geography.)

This is unfortunate, because the book contains a wealth of excellent material which is excellently explained. Many of the core causes which Diamond explores ring very true, and his points are persuasively argued. The connection between the development of agriculture and the subsequent unequal rise of military capability worldwide is very convincing. But convincing though they may be, reading these theories one can't shake the sneaking suspicion that Diamond is selectively presenting evidence which he's has found to support his previously drawn conclusion, and neglecting evidence which runs counter.

Diamond plants these doubts through his sometimes-careless prose. Consider the following statement, which he includes in the introduction to his chapter on the rise of food production:

"My fellow farmhands were, for the most part, tough whites whose normal speech featured strings of curses, and who spent their weekdays working so that they could devote their weekends to squandering their weeks' wages in the local saloon. Among the farmhands, though, was a member of the Blackfoot Indian tribe named Levi, who behaved very differently from the coarse miners - being polite, gentle, responsible, sober, and well spoken"

I thought for a moment that I'd wandered into the script for "Dances With Wolves." Note that had this statement been turned on its head - had he, for example, recounted an unflattering anecdote about Native Americans or Hispanics -my instincts would immediately warn me that the author's biases might be influencing how he chooses to present the evidence. I myself am a Black American, I'm all too painfully aware that we've had to wade through some pretty grim stuff penned by authors clutching at straws to support their racist white supremacist views of the world. In this case Diamond does the reverse by aiming his negative bias towards Caucasians, but if I'm truly interested in unbiased science then my skepticism should remain the same.

That I lead with these criticisms is evidence of my disappointment in what could have been an excellent book, and indeed much of it *is* indeed excellent. This is a book that taught me much and has indeed changed my view of world history in many ways. I do recommend this book - the details are good and many of the theories ring true, but in the same breath I would warn against accepting Diamond's conclusions in their entirety without a bit of skepticism.

In summary, Guns, Germs, and Steel contains an important feature which David Landes's Wealth and Poverty of Nations so conspicuously lacks: a grand unifying theory which links the disparate growth rates of diverse societies worldwide. But Diamond's tidy conclusion that world history is simply a deterministic result of geography and nothing else is not entirely satisfying, especially in that it might cause us to be complacent about the future. I accept that accidents of geography have had a huge effect on mankind, and Diamond convincingly argues this. But culture and human decisions do matter. Diamond argues that human ingenuity is simply the result of the accident of having a larger population from which to draw innovations - but societies that internalize this philosophy do so at their considerable peril.

A new view of where the fertile ground is found..., October 3, 2001
GUNS, GERMS, AND STEEL is a persuasive discourse of competitive plausibility regarding the challenging question why population groups on different continents experienced widely divergent paths of development. Contrary to the voluminous objections cited in the many of the reviews below, Professor Jared Diamond, clearly an enthusiastic proponent of environmental determinism, presents a set of premises consistent with evidence provided from a wide range of disciplines, but he does not attempt to answer the question of genetic diversity, including differentiated intelligence, among racial groups as many reviewers have inferred. If anything, implicitly, the author appears to support promulgations of differentiated intelligences; he sets out to demonstrate intelligence was not the root cause to Eurasian dominance.

On at least two occasions Diamond, without equivocation, stated he found on average the New Guinean to be more intelligent than the average European or American. He was prompted to undertake this investigation as a result of a question posed by a New Guinean friend - Why white people developed so much cargo (material goods) and brought it to New Guinea while the indigenous had so little. Diamond summarized his findings as follows: "History followed different courses for different peoples because of differences among peoples environments, not because of biological differences among people themselves."

Beginning 13,000 years ago, the author illuminated the conditions or circumstances that may have facilitated growth for some groups and inhibited the same for others. Diamond accepts the out of Africa theory for the dispersion of Homosapiens to the other continents (for purposes of his treatise Europe and Asia are indivisible), and like the old axiom of real estate, the importance of location, location, location becomes readily apparent. For Diamond, food production is the ultimate cause of variable rates of development for different peoples. He illustrates how the abundance of wild plants subject to domestication and availability of large mammals served as immediate factors to transition from hunter/gatherer bands and tribes to sedentary agriculturally based chiefdoms and states.

Diamond lists what he proposes as proximate causes to European dominance:

1) Germs - based on close proximity to domesticated animals, immunities were developed infectious strains Europeans would carry to other areas, resulting in the decimation of non-immunized populations. In turn, those groups had few autochthonous diseases that would affect the invaders.
2) Invention of writing- relatively sedentary lifestyles facilitated devotion of more time and effort to the creation of methodologies to control and coordinate commerce. These systems eased transfer of information among society members, and had further implications to the establishment of hierarchical political organization.
3) Axial orientation of the different continents - east/ west orientation was conducive to transmigration of people, products, and technologies. Plants best suited to specific climatic conditions were readily transferable; geographic encumbrances were less severe and population isolation was not as significant.
4) Establishment of hierarchical organizations - food production instigated the growth of artisan classes focused on technological improvement, leisure classes devoted to functions unrelated to subsistence, organization of massive armies comprised of professional soldiers, and religion, which allowed individual groupings to live together under codification without killing one another.
5) Continental Isolation - Landmasses that were separated by geographic or ecological boundaries were under less pressure to develop or adopt new ideas, products or technologies from competing civilizations.

Some of the author's theories were not defended as successfully as others. His explanation why Sub-Saharan Africans were unable to identify species (the water buffalo and Zebra are two prime examples) that may have been used in farming and commerce seemed rather weak. Capture, taming and subsequent selective breeding for temperament seems as viable here as he indicates was the case on the Eurasian plains for other species. Similarly, he does not offer a convincing argument regarding the American Indian's failure to domesticate the Bison, although the inference seems to be the lack of cultivatible plant life was certainly a factor.

Overall, Diamond provides a compelling theory of the differences in development rates among different peoples, linking a wide set of factors that are not generally considered in parallel in the historical record. For anyone with even peripheral interest in the evolution of different societies, this is an enthralling book.

Love it or hate it, you should read this book, September 24, 2002
As an avid reader with absolutely no previous contact with the field of anthropology, I found this book to be mesmerizing. Jared Diamond has achieved great success with "Guns, Germs and Steel" (national best-seller, Pulitzer Prize), but it has also made him the target of strident, often venomous criticism...

Diamond's general thesis is that the West conquered the world rather than vice versa because of a fluke of nature. In short, Eurasia was home to an important number of crops and animals that readily lent themselves to successful domestication. This domestication resulted in mass food production, which the author claims is the "ultimate" cause of Western dominance. Food production, in turn, led to a number of "proximate" causes related to the rise of the West: farms and animal herds led to stationary populations and excess food to support a specialized class of bureaucrats and soldiers; it also increased population density, which, along with close contact with animals, led to germs and the subsequent genetic resistance of Westerners to those diseases. Finally, Diamond concludes, the unique East-West axis of Eurasia and the absence of any impenetrable geographic barriers fostered the spread of new crops, technologies, etc., which gave rise to many competing communities, whose competition further increased the western lead over the rest of the world.

Diamond's arguments are persuasive on the surface, and even the biggest skeptic will have reason for pause after reading his book. However, the final chapter reveals that he can't really resolve a fundamental question: why did Europe, rather than the Middle East, India or China come to conquer the world? Almost the entire book is dedicated to explaining why the Eurasian landmass was blessed with the prerequisites for large civilizations rather than the Americas, Africa and Australia. His terse explanation for why Europe in particular dominated leaves much to be desired and explained.

In this reviewer's opinion, the recent book by classicist Victor Davis Hanson ("Carnage and Culture") provides a plausible epilogue for Diamond's piece. Hanson completely and explicitly rejects Diamond's geographic determinism, but I don't think the two theses are incompatible or in any way mutually exclusive. In fact, it seems to me that Diamond and Hanson support one another, as the latter's assertion that the war-making efficiency of liberal democracies beginning in the Hellenistic period explains Europe's ultimate triumph.

In closing, as an introduction to anthropology and a cogent depiction of one school of thought on the rise of the West this book is marvelous. Approach it with an open-mind, reflect on the thesis and the supporting evidence, and then draw your own conclusions. Love it or hate it, you owe it to yourself to read this book.

An overrated book, November 9, 2003
Jared Diamond is a thoroughgoing geographical determinist. His book highlights both the strengths and the weaknesses of this approach.

Diamond's major topic is the Neolithic Revolution. His intention is to demonstrate that environmental conditions were not equally suitable to the development of agriculture on different continents. Eurasia, he contends, was the most appropriate place. It had the largest number of domesticable plants and animals, an east-west axis favoring the diffusion of inventions, offered good possibilities for inter-continental communication, and was the largest and most populous continent. So the Eurasians were first in developing agriculture, gaining thus a headstart in history. Agriculture led to rising polulations and created a dynamic that prompted the evolution of states, writing and a sophisticated technology (guns and steel). These social and technological advantages, plus immunity to the most dangerous infectious diseases (germs), allowed Eurasians to easily subdue the natives of the Americas, Australia and Southeast Asia.

On the whole this argument, which takes up the first 410 pages of the book, is convincing. Diamond is also right to insist on adopting a long time-frame. As early as 8000 years ago Eurasians had a substantial edge over their rivals on other continents, making it unlikely for those peoples and civilizations to catch up.

Had Diamond stopped writing at this point, he would have published a good work.

However, he was not content to treat only the Neolithic Revolution, but wanted to cover all major turns in world history. Hence the last 15 (!) pages of the book are devoted to a completely different subject. Having explained the rise of Eurasia, Diamond now wants to explain the rise of the West. Quickly the question becomes: Why Europe, not China? Borrowing an idea from Eric Jones ('The European Miracle'; but beware: Jones' approach is much more sophisticated than Diamond's, avoiding any kind of monocausal determinism) Diamond provides a simple answer: Europe was geographically more diverse than China. Therefore it did not become politically unified. Political fragmentation led to openness and openness to progress - ideas and inventions that were rejected at one place could succeed at another.

This speculation is not plausible at all.

First, there is no geographical NECESSITY for European fragmentation and Chinese unity. Europe has many features favoring political unity. Its long coastline and a great number of navigable rivers allow for easy transportation by water, offering an important asset to any would-be imperial power. The Romans took advantage of this to the utmost, and if they were able to conquer a great part of the continent, there can surely have been no compelling GEOGRAPHICAL reason for later powers to fail. Diamond himself seems to realize this, when he admits that India had even more agricultural core areas than Europe. Yet India was ruled as a unified empire for most of its history.

Second, Diamond's explanation - even if assumed to be correct - accounts only for INNOVATION. It tells us why certain inventions made by Chinese craftsmen were never introduced into the production-process of China's economy. A more important question to ask would have been why many significant inventions were not made in China in the first place. A prime example coming to mind is modern natural science, which was never developed in the Middle Kingdom.

Third, it is easy to see that Diamond's argument is undermined by his own evidence. As he tells us, China was scientifically and technologically ahead of Europe (and the rest of the world) for more than 1000 years. If China could achieve this superiority despite its supposed geographical disadvantages, we cannot escape the conclusion that those disadvantages either did not exist or were of minor importance. Europe, on the other hand, remained a cultural backwater for most of its history despite its supposed geographical advantages. Again, we cannot but conclude that these advantages either did not exist or were of minor importance.

Thus Diamond's environmentalism is completely refuted by Chinese and European history before 1500 a.d. Moreover, no other version of geographical determinism is likely to fare better. Since China's geography did not change within the last 2000 years, every purely geographical interpretation of its history must be wrong. It will either fail to account for the period of Chinese superiority or for the period of Chinese backwardness.

Diamond's errors are grounded in his method. Geographical determinism can explain the Neolitic Revolution, because this transformation was brought about by small bands of hunter-gatherers extremely dependant on their environment. Even so, Diamond needs FOUR causal factors to account for its different outcome on each continent (1. The wild plant and animal species available; 2. Orientation of the major continental axis; 3. Possibilities for inter-continental communication, 4. Size of area and population of a given continent). When we look at the great Eurasian civilizations, we have to deal with a type of society vastly more complex and far less dependant on its environment than are bands of hunter-gatherers. Yet Diamond wants to explain the history of these civilizations with reference to just ONE causal factor (the impact of geography on political unity). Instead of becoming more sophisticated in accordance with its subject, Diamond's approach turns brutally simplistic just as it is applied to the most difficult problem of world history.

It is unlikely that the rise of the West can ever be explained geographically. Any serious attempt to write global history for periods after the Neolithic Revolution will have to be sensitive to the complex interplay between geography, economy, technology, politics and culture that shapes the development of large societies. The work of Max Weber and Fernand Braudel provides good examples of the kind of scholarship needed for this task. Jared Diamond's book not only fails to rise up to this standard, but is crude, superficial and disappointing even from a geographical point of view.

Clearly Diamond did not know when to put his pen down. His book would have been better if he had refrained from addressing topics unsuited to his method.

A Question for the Ages, February 12, 2000
Many years ago a New Guinea native asked Jared Diamond a simple question: "Why is it that you white people developed so much cargo and brought it to New Guinea, but we black people had little cargo of our own?" Only slightly rephrased, Diamond devotes this book to answering the question why, from the depths of the primeval forests of Africa, mankind emerged at different rates, some achieving the heights of civilization and technology while others remained virtually in the Stone Age? And why did people on some continental landmasses prosper while people on others lagged behind, especially because some locations, like the California Coast, are mild and desirable while others, like Northern Europe are harsh and forbidding?

Diamond's thesis is that some populations got a head start over others in the development of civilization. But the head start resulted from favorable geography and natural resources, not from any innate superiority. Given the same location and advantages, any group of people over time would have reached the same result. The first beneficiary of geography happened to be the Fertile Crescent. The "cradle of civilization" not only had all five major large mammals (sheep, goats, cattle, pigs, and horses) available for domestication, but they also possessed the major wild seed groups that would become domesticated grain and cereals. Not all areas are so favorably endowed.

Once hunting and gathering gave way to food production, population density took hold, which in turn made possible civic development and technology. The head start then spread roughly along the same parallel east to Asia and west to Europe. Diamond contrasts Eurasia's wide girth and similar climates with America's and Africa's narrow waist and elongated longitude. Technology and culture can shuttle back and forth vast distances between east and west, but climatic zone differences as well as mountain ranges and deserts inhibit flows north and south.

I have two criticisms of the book. One, it has no footnotes so that one can source out the author's materials. For example, on page 108 Diamond asserts that early man, because of his ego, would rather hunt giraffes than gather nuts. Is that theory his, or someone else's? The very nature of a book such as "Guns, Germs, and Steel" requires that it pile theory upon theory to make a picture puzzle of a distant and hidden past. If key pieces don't fit, the picture may take a decidedly Cubist theme. A few footnotes would help the reader who wants to delve deeper into a topic.

The second criticism is the author's failure to address the role of human intelligence in the development of civilization. Considering the grief Charles Murray took into for writing "The Bell Curve," which held that certain populations have actually raised their intelligence level through centuries of using their brains to solve problems, one understands why Diamond steers clear of the topic - no academic can afford to be tinged with even a hint of racism or euro centrism. Plenty of professors on the leftist fringe stand ready to point the accusing finger any anybody who deviates from the acceptable norm. But surely scholars can deal with the role human intelligence in a non-racist way; after all, the physiology of the human brain is the same in all Homo sapiens. Diamond owes it to his readers to complete the mosaic he has created.

Diamond has an excellent hammer that he uses too often, January 3, 2003
As the saying goes, when you have a hammer, everything looks like nails. I found Diamond's basic hypothesis that the march to civilization is accelerated (if not determined) by availability of useful, domesticable plants and animals and a geography suited for the transmission of the plants and animals (and later ideas) over a large distance very compelling.

The two places he fails in what would otherwise be one of the best books I've read is he seems to be working toward a personal agenda, and he applies his theories to inappropriate situations. His personal agenda is not hidden, with his discussion of New Guinea's tribesmen fairly glowing. I guess it's better to have it out in the open than hidden, but it makes the work seem like a justification for his preconceptions rather than an unbiased research into the broad strokes of history.

His very compelling basic point is that when numerous small groups (tribes, etc) compete, the rate of adoption, modification, and usage of available resources will be fairly constant across any group of people. The rate is only modified by the quality of those resources and the number of people with access to them, because if one society fails to use its resources at the best rate of human invention, a competing society will force the adoption either through competition or conquest.

The problem is, and he acknowledges it in one sentence and ignores it in another, is that when societies (especially dictatorial ones) no longer feel competitive pressure, they can behave in largely unpredictable ways governed only by happenstance and psychology. He tries to explain the failures of the Aztecs and (especially) the Incas to use the wheel by describing them as "Island Cultures" since they did not have competing societies nearby. He later uses the same argument about China.

The problem is that there is a range between small tribes and enormous islands where his theory only partially applies, and where much of written history has occurred. His arguments to explain why Europe was not one big island (meaning politically unified) were not very compelling, but given the fact that Europe wasn't unified his theory does explain why the West outpaced China in the past 600 years. His troubling assertion that the fertile crescent couldn't compete with Europe in modern times merely due to resource depletion (since it had been civilized for so long) was only in passing and lacked much backing in statistics or research.

Unlike some other reviewers, I don't feel he was too hard on the West's modern conquest of the native peoples of the Pacific, the Americas, and Africa. He points out that disease made the lands empty, and that much of the pushing out of the natives was inadvertent due to the actions of people behaving just as our prehistoric ancestors did (and every other continent's ancestors did) for thousands of years. And when he chooses the words "exterminated" (in modern colonization) over "displaced" (in prehistoric colonization) he does it because he has the historical facts to back him up in one case, and only conjecture in the other, and he acknowledges the difference at least a few times.

I definitely recommend this book if you are unfamiliar with the geographical element of the prehistoric move to civilization. Just keep in mind this is a theory that by nature no longer applies, and stopped applying somewhere between 100-600 years ago as modern communication destroyed geographic separation.

interesting theory - difficult to read, February 28, 2002
In July 1972, Author Jared Diamond, was walking along
a beach on a tropic island of New Guinea, where as a
biologist he studied bird evolution. By chance, he
ran into a local politician, named Yali, who was
working to liberate what was then Papa New Guinea from
the Australia government. After hours of
conversation, Yali posed the question, "Why is it that
you white people developed so much cargo (technology)
and brought it to New Guinea, but we black people had
little cargo of our own?" Why did wealth and power
become distributed as they are now, rather than in
some other way? Diamond was troubled that he did not
have an adequate response to Yali's Question. Fast
forward 25 years -- Diamond writes a 425 page answer.

The most common explanation to this question involves
implicit or explicit assumptions based on biological
inequalities. Usually these racial explanations are
cast in some sort of Darwinian argument where
causality is often left in question. Diamond thesis
attempts to refute these theories with an alternate
theory. Relying on a combination of history,
archeology, and microbiology, and genetics, Diamond
suggests that the most striking differences between
the long-term histories of different cultures have
been due not to innate differences in peoples
themselves but to differences in their environments.
These environmental factors include: continental
differences in the wild plant and animal species
available as starting materials for domestication;
environmental factors affecting rates of diffusion and
migration; and continental differences in area or
total population sizes. Diamond believes that these
geographical inequalities set different civilizations
on pre-determined trajectories to develop political
organization, technological advancements, and immunity
to disease that allowed them to encounter and conquer
other civilizations.
A cultural historian in a past life, I get all excited
about this sort of thing.

As one can imagine, trying to explain the history of
civilization in one volume is an arduous task.
Diamond chooses to explain his theory in broad strokes
then uses natural experiments at distinct points in
history to demonstrate how his ideas play out. This
is a general problem with all meta-histories.
Historical methods teach us that it is virtually
impossible to forge a bulletproof argument without
delving into the minutia. But when focusing on the

"big picture" issues, there is just too much
information to cover. Diamond does a very good job
managing this balance. He begins by outlining his
methods and follows through on his explanation with
dedication and accomplishment. He goes into just
about the right amount of detail on every subject and
infuses the traditional historical approach with a
healthy dose of scientific discovery. The chapters
concerning the domestication of plants and large
animals are a joy to read. While speaking on the
familiar new world conquest, Diamond is balanced in
the application of his detailed examples to forward
his theories. Notably, Diamond uses Australia and the
south pacific to demonstrate the dissemination of
technology and China to discuss the application of
unified language and political entities. In fact,
with my American History background, I was more
partial to the Euro centric examples.

So what's bad about the book? One of my pet peeves
involves arguing by anecdotal evidence and I cringed
every time Diamond brought up some story about a
bushman to illustrate his point. But this was a minor
annoyance. Another problem is Diamond's paucity of
footnotes. There were several portions of prose that
I felt should have been annotated with further
discussion and evidence. I should also warn you that
this book is a little dense. Be prepared for a 20
page discussion about the cross pollination of
language. It's a good idea to remember that I've got
a degree in this stuff. Back when I was younger,
smarter, and more exciting, I used to pour through
thousands of pages of this garbage every week. Beaten
into submission by a desk job and dearth of ...
pitchers of beer, I found the last 100 pages of Guns,
Germs, and Steel difficult to get through

So if you are up for the challenge, "Guns, Germs, and
Steel" is a insightful and rewarding book. For me, it
was probably a good substitute for chasing women and
the cultural/political theories almost kept me warm at
night. All joking aside, I guarantee that this book
will change the way you think about European conquest.

Captivating, Flawed Scientific Review of Human Prehistory, July 6, 2000
Once in a while a book comes along compelling enough to bring mind altering new perspectives, spark extended contemplation, and arouse fresh interest in overlooked fields of study. This is one of those books. In Guns, Germs, and Steel Diamond investigates human prehistory from a scientific perspective drawing on numerous disciplines to develop a hypothesis that the globally unbalanced rise of civilization and technology was primarily a function of advantageous environmental conditions and resources available to those societies where civilization arose. Though the present landscape may suggest that early societies were on a relatively equal environmental playing field, Diamond's scientific review of the evidence indicates convincingly otherwise. A particularly persuasive point in the book argues that environmental conditions amenable to agriculture (mild climate, indigenous protein-rich plants, and large indigenous domestication-ready animals) facilitated a food surplus and consequently denser populations with surplus time for some members of the society to take on trades, invent, engineer, lead, develop government, heal, build, paint, etc. Innovations then fuelled more surplus time perpetuating a tornado of advancement, sparked in large part by the proverbial flapping butterfly wings of agriculture.

Diamond's book challenged my fractured knowledge of human prehistory leaving worldview shattering ideas in its wake. His book also sparked my renewed interest in geography, anthropology, archaeology, weather, and geology among others. The book's fusion of the scientific method with the study of history was quite potent and refreshing, though at times overly reductionist. As such, less scientifically reducible elements like culture and religion are not considered within his hypothesis.

At times the book did seem to forgo scientific rigor for political correctness. For example, though Diamond relies on numerous examples of relatively recent non-human elements of natural selection and genetics to build his case, he is unwilling to discuss the potential role of human biological variation created by our settling contrasting environments. Considering modern humans resided and/or began migrating to new and varied lands over 100,000 years ago, there seems sufficient time for some physiological variations to develop that may be relevant to Diamond's case. Unfortunately for this reader, anticipating a compelling argument either way, Diamond just states that environment-induced genetic variations are irrelevant to societal development (and "loathsome" to even think about) as if it were a self-evident axiom. Curiously, he challenges this axiom himself by postulating that the people of New Guinea are likely smarter than the average human considering the mental acuity necessary to survive in their harsh environment.

Overall, besides some minor disappointments, this was a spectacular book and I highly recommend it. ... Read more

Editorial Review

Reviews

Comparisons to Blink are inevitable
Lehrer takes aim squarely at Malcolm Gladwell's book, Blink, and, for my money, hits a home run. How We Decide is clearly and interestingly written, like Gladwell, but is more substantiated with recent neuroscience research. Lehrer's conclusion is also more nuanced, i.e., the best way to make a decision depends on different factors, and argues for the effectiveness and importance of monitoring our own thought process.

This is one talented young man. I read Lehrer's first book about Proust and neuroscience, and while I was super impressed with his intellect, it required serious effort to read and understand. How We Decide is a lighter read, but just as original and significant in its own way.

A brilliant analysis of "the power of the emotional brain"

With regard to neuroscience, I am the among non-scholars who have a keen interest in what the brain and mind are and how they function, and am especially interested in how decisions are made. In recent years, I have read a variety of books that have helped me to increase my knowledge in these specific areas. They include William Calvin's How Brains Think: Evolving Intelligence, Then and Now, Gerald Edelman's Bright Air, Brilliant Fire: On The Matter Of The Mind, Guy Claxton's Hare Brain, Tortoise Mind: How Intelligence Increases When You Think Less, Howard Gardner's Five Minds for the Future, Malcolm Gladwell's Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking, and most recently, Torkel Klingberg's The Overflowing Brain: Information Overload and the Limits of Working Memory. I am grateful to these and other volumes for increasing my understanding of the decision-making process while realizing that is still so much more that I need to know. Hence my interest in Jonah Lehrer's book, How We Decide.

In the Introduction in which he shares an experience aboard a simulated flight landing at Tokyo Narita International Airport, Lehrer observes: "In the end, the difference between landing my plane in one piece and my dying in a fiery crash came down to a single decision made in the panicked moments after the engine fire...This book is about how we make decisions. It's about airline pilots, NFL quarterbacks, television directors, poker players, professional investors, and serial killers...[Ever since the ancient Greeks, assumptions about decision making have revolved around a single theme: humans are ration.] There's only one problem with this assumption of human rationality: It's not how the brain works...We can look inside the brain and see how humans think: the black box has been broken open. It turns out we weren't designed to be rational creatures...Whenever someone makes a decision, the brain is awash in feeling, driven by its inexplicable passions. Even when a person tries to be reasonable and restrained, these emotional impulses secretly influence judgment...Knowing how the mind [i.e. `a powerful biological machine'] works is useful knowledge, since it shows us how to get the most out of the machine. But the brain doesn't exist in a vacuum; all decisions are made in the context of the real world."

Then in the Coda, Lehrer re-visits the approach into the Tokyo airport that, we now realize, serves as the central metaphor in his book. "When the onboard computers and pilots properly interact, it's an ideal model for decision-making. The rational brain (the pilot) and the emotional brain (the cockpit computers) exist in perfect equilibrium, each system focusing on those areas in which it has a comparative advantage. The reason planes are so safe, areas in which it has a competitive advantage. The reason planes are so safe, even though both the pilot and the autopilot are fallible, is that both systems are constantly working to correct each other. Mistakes are fixed before they spiral out of control." The safe landing of U.S. Airways Flight 1549 on the Hudson River on January 15th offers a more recent example of what Lehrer calls "perfect equilibrium" between Captain Chesley ("Sully") Sullenberger and the computers aboard the Airbus A320.

There are many valuable insights within Lehrer's narrative. Here are several that caught my eye, albeit quoted out of context.

"The process of thinking requires feeling, for feelings are what let us understand all the information that we can't directly comprehend. Reason without emotion is impotent." (Page 26)

"Unless you experience the unpleasant symptoms of being wrong, your brain will never revise its models. Before your neurons can succeed, they must repeatedly fail. There are no shortcuts for this painstaking process." (Page 54)

"The ability to supervise itself, to exercise authority over its own decision-making process, is one of the most mysterious talents of the human brain. Such a mental maneuver is known as executive control, since thoughts are directed from the tip down, like a CEO issuing orders." (Page 116)

"As it happens, some of our most important decisions are about how to treat other people. The human being is a social animal, endowed with a brain that shapes social behavior. By understanding how the brain makes these decisions, we can gain insight into one of the most unique aspects of human nature: morality." (Page 166) Lehrer devotes all of Chapter 6, The Mortal Mind, to this important "aspect." For
example:

"At its core, moral decision-making is about sympathy. We abhor violence because we know violence hurts. We treat others fairly because we know what it feels like to be treated unfairly. We reject suffering because we can imagine what it's like to suffer. Our minds naturally bind us together, so we can't help but follow the advice of Luke: `And as ye would that men should do to you, do ye also to them likewise." (Page 180)

Actually, I highlighted dozens of other passages but this review is already longer than I originally intended so I will quote no others. Because I think so highly of this book, I wanted to allow Lehrer sufficient opportunity to share at least a few of his thoughts with those who read this review. Credit him with a brilliant achievement: Enabling his readers to make better decisions by helping them to "see" themselves as they really are by carefully examining that is inside the "black box of the human brain." Only by doing so can we "honestly assess our flaws and talents, our strengths and shortcomings. For the first time [Lehrer claims], such a vision is possible. We finally have tools that can piece the mystery of the mind, revealing the intricate machinery that shapes our behavior. Now we need to put this knowledge."

I am unqualified to comment on Jonah Lehrer's claim that what he offers enables the aforementioned "vision" for the first time. However, he has certainly increased both my awareness and my understanding of what may be in my own "black box."

One of the best in the field of neuroscience
"If you're going to take one idea away from this book, take this one: Whenever you make a decision, be aware of the kind of decision you are making and the kind of thought process it requires."

If you think about a book on human behaviours, unexpected findings, and researches, you could probably think of a lot of them. If you add neuroscience to the mix, you would probably think of a few. But if you think of that kind of book with a practical and solid guideline for you to change how you live your life, I doubt you could find that many. And "How We Decide" by Jonah Lehrer falls in that category.

The book is about `decisions' and how they are made by rationality and emotions from you brain (there are lots of parts within the frontal cortex but I'm not sure which). This is another typical book of this genre but let me tell you why should you `decide' to get this book.

Contents

The Quarterback in the Pocket
The first story starts with the 2002 Super Bowl and how Tom Brady made the decision that led the team to victory. Lehrer moved onto stories of Plato and the very interesting one is the man who had a brain damage and lost emotions and eventually, he just could not `decide'. This chapter focuses on `emotion' and how it is crucial to decision making.

The Predictions of Dopamine
The chapter begins with the story of Lieutenant Commander Michael Riley who commanded a British destroyer and decided to do something vital during the Persian Gulf War (I'm not going to spoil the story). The author also wrote about Bill Robertie, a chess master, a widely respected poker expert, and a backgammon champion. By the way, this is not my field but Dopamine is the brain region (or cell, or neurons, or whatever) that links our emotion to expectations.

Fooled by a Feeling
Emotions cannot do everything. The author wrote about Ann Klinestiver, a Parkinson teacher who became a slot machine addict (and lost literally almost everything in life) AFTER her Parkinson's disease `treatment'. The chapter moves onto basketball player's hot hands, stock investment, and a game show `Deal or No Deal'. The epic part of this chapter is about credit card (I am personally moved by this part and it sent shiver down my spine). The core of this chapter that wild feelings or emotions can bring us down.

The Uses of Reason
The story of a firefighter who survive the thick wall of raging fire starts the chapter perfectly because it is about how reasons are crucial at certain times. There is also another heartfelt story about a young girl, Mary, who were a brilliant and bright girl with bright future but one day she became different and ruined her life drinking, sleeping around and became angry a lot. She was eventually infected by HIV because of her brain tumor! Another great story in this chapter is how Captain Al Haynes of the United Airlines Flight 232 could maneuver the plane without basically everything working except the thrust levers.

Choking on Thought
The chapter begins with the opera singer Renee Fleming and how her career went downhill. Likewise, Van de Velde, a golf pro, could not recover from the career slump because of their `thoughts'. There are numerous researches in this chapter along with the MRI machine that failed to treat back pain. The point of the chapter is that we can think too much because our brain is not designed to calculate, take into account, and make a decision of 10 choices with 20 factors each.

The Moral Mind
This is also one of my favourite chapters starting with John Wayne Gacy, a psychopath who murdered thirty-three boys. The crucial aspect is how he thought and decided to commit those `evil' (put your baddest word here) crimes without a wink. There are many researches including the one on war. There is also a very eye-opening story about `autism'.

The Brain Is An Argument
Within a decision, there are numerous parts of your brain working at the same time and you are likely to decide based on which part is winning be it choosing a political party candidate, shopping, or pundits. There is a story about decision-making failure during the 1973 war in the Middle East.

The Poker Hand
This chapter is mainly about Michael Binger, one of the world's best poker players and how he applied different tactics in each different round. The chapter ends with the simple guidelines (with explanations, of course)
SIMPLE PROBLEMS REQUIRE REASON
NOVEL PROBLEMS ALSO REQUIRE REASON
EMBRACE UNCERTAINTY
YOU KNOW MORE THAN YOU KNOW
THINK ABOUT THINKING

Coda
It's the conclusion with another great story

...
I'll compare "How We Decide" to an ideal business book in my personal opinion a book that is easy to understand, distinct, practical, reliable, insightful, and provides great reading experience.

Ease of Understanding: 9/10: From the briefing above, you will see that there are so many stories and they make it easy to understand the content and the way Jonah Lehrer wrote is a breath of fresh air. Each chapter has its core concept and the explanations are clear. The only confusion comes from the neuroscience. If you are not familiar with the brain parts, you might struggle a bit but that's minor.

Distinction: 6/10: What can I say? I have read some researches in the book from other books and this book is not the breakthrough of a major finding on neuroscience. However, this book is different in the aspect that it tells you why you did what you did and it tells you how should you do, which brings us to the next part.

Practicality: 9/10: When I first picked up "How We Decide", I did not have much hope in practicality but this book exceeds every expectation of mine. I might be biased but since I read the chapter on credit card, I really stopped using my credit card (except for online purchases) because the book told me what I thought and it was like a lightning struck on your head. The stories and researches will make you think of yourself and the world around you differently.

Credibility: 8/10: There is no need to not believe the book because of the tons of highly advanced scientific researches regarding the activity in your brain. Every explanation and analysis is written in plain language but scientific proofs are always there.

Insightful: 7/10: When I think of this book, I can think of so many stories (this is probably the book which has stories that I can recall most). I spent hours telling my friends about the stories in this book. There are lots of stories and lots of researches. Yes, it's pretty insightful.

Reading Experience: 10/10: I love the book. The book changes the way I spend and that alone is much great than the $25 price tag of the book. I changed the way I think of an unfortunate autistic person I know personally because in the past, I think of feeling and emotion for granted but this book says `don't, you don't have a clue'. Moreover, the book has (I said it for the millionth time) great stories that you will remember.

Overall: 8.2/10: I love the book. Bias? Possibly. "If you're going to take one idea away from this book, take this one: Whenever you make a decision, be aware of the kind of decision you are making and the kind of thought process it requires." And trust me that if you start from that idea, you'll get countless of invaluable ideas, for life.

Excellent introduction to the psychology of decision making
Lehrer is a superb science writer and this is an excellent non-technical introduction to the psychology of decision making. This is one of my favorite topics, so there was very little here that was new to me or particularly original other than Lehrer's smooth way of explaining the ideas and clever use of diverse examples.

I particularly like this book as a corrective to Gladwell's popular book "Blink" which introduces many of the same ideas but in a more biased way. The thing that makes this book so much better is that it doesn't use a cute spin to try to be original and provocative and socially relevant, he sticks to the science and as a result gets it closer to the truth I think.

Lehrer doesn't at all downplay emotions in decision making, "rapid cognition," and so on, in fact he demonstrates their power. He just makes the very important point that we should rely on our non-conscious decision making feelings in some situations more than others. The more experience we have accumulated in an area, the more we should go with our gut. The less experience we have in an area, the more we should use formal techniques to help structure and guide the decision process.

This isn't a magic bullet and it is probably fairly obvious to most people who have studied the subject and thought about it, so it won't catch on like the notion of the "miraculous power of the unconscious" periodically does, but it is very wise and well scientifically founded advice.

If you read lots of decision science book like I do, you don't need this one also, but if you are looking for your first book on decision science, this could well be one of your best choices. ... Read more

Editorial Review

FEELING GOOD FEELS WONDERFUL
The good news is that anxiety, guilt, pessimism, procrastination, low self-esteem, and other "black holes" of depression can be cured without drugs.In FEELING GOOD, eminent psychiatrist, David D. Burns, M.D., outlines the remarkable, scientifically proven techniques that will immediately lift your spirits and help you develop a positive outlook on life.Now, in this updated edition, Dr. Burns adds an ALL-NEW CONSUMER'S GUIDE TO ANTIDEPRESSANT DRUGS as well as a new introduction to help answer your questions about the many options available for treating depression.

- Recognize what causes your mood swings
- Nip negative feelings in the bud
- Deal with guilt
- Handle hostility and criticism
- Overcome addiction to love and approval
- Build self-esteem
- Feel good everyday

BEGIN NOW, TO EXPERIENCE THE JOY OF FEELING GOOD ... Read more

Reviews

A classic...but a lot to read at 736 pages, November 7, 2010
Feeling Good is a classic for treating depression with cognitive behavior therapy - learning to think better thoughts and thus create a better mood. However, this book is a LOT to read (736 pages), and some people just can't wade through it and apply all the techniques.

I found Laughing Again: A Survivor's Guide to Healing Depression much more helpful. It's a personal story of healing, so it's really engaging. It's a quick, easy read. And, it addresses 7 lifestyle changes that are clinically proven to heal depression (CBT is only one of these lifestyle changes).

Feeling Good is definitely a great resource on the CBT aspect of healing depression, but if you can pick only one book to read, make it Laughing Again. It's inspiring AND comprehensive; it touches on ALL the ways your lifestyle can heal your anxious, stressed-out, depressed brain.

For more indepth and comprehensive look at CBT, I really liked Dr. Ilardi's The Depression Cure: The 6-Step Program to Beat Depression without Drugs as well.

Think Good, Feel Good, November 14, 2009
The title of my review is actually a summary of how this book plans to make you feel better.

The book is authored by a someone who has had a lot of experience using cognitive therapy techniques to try and improve people's depression. Cognitive therapy's premise is that your thinking (messages that you are giving yourself all day long) directly inflences your moods and how you feel. Therefore, if you are thinking negatively, you're going to feel that way. Likewise, if you think positive and optimistically, well, you're going to feel good!

And that's what the book is about- getting you to get rid of negative thoughts and replacing them with good ones. Does it work? Well, the book has been around since 1980, and there's actually been some good solid research that has actually taken the book, given it to depressed patients.....and they've improved!

With its easy writing style and research-backed techniques, Feeling Good: The New Mood Therapy +Revised and Updated is definitely worth the read- just know you've got over 500+ pages ahead of you. If this seems too daunting, or this approach doesn't appeal to you, try something like Exercise Beats Depression- which has been shown to be just as effective as cognitive therapy or drugs in controlled trials. Good luck!

Best of the Self-Help Books, July 11, 2000
I have been dealing with anxiety and depression for many years and have read just about every type of book imaginable. The only reason I'm writing this review is that I found this book to be the best overall work I have ever read in the realm of self-help psychology.

One of the greatest parts about the book is that Dr. Burns' model of cognitive behavioral therapy is very thorough, yet it is easy to understand and incorporate into one's daily living. He recommends cognitive behavioral therapy as the first line defense in dealing with mood disorders. However, the beauty of the book lies in the fact that Dr. Burns does not simply dismiss psychotropic medications. He clearly states that medications in addition to his therapeutic techniques are wholly appropriate for many people. In fact, it this updated edition he goes into detail about the different classes and types of drug options available on the market today. This approach is refreshing for someone who is benefitting from the use of medication and wanting to incorporate cognitive behavioral therapy into their recovery without having to read a book which outright dismisses the role of medication in treatment.

Also of special significance is his list of 10 'Cognitive Distortions'. Here, he lays out a plan for recognizing faulty thinking, how these thoughts affect our moods, and how to correct these distortions.

In summation, Dr. Burns' book is a practical encapsulation of the ideas and theories of some of the great pioneers in the field of mental health such as Drs. Abraham Low, Albert Ellis, and Aaron Beck.

If you made it this far to decide whether or not to buy this book, read some of the other reviews then put it in your cart.

It really works!, October 28, 2003
I've tried talk therapy and antidepressants. The talk therapy was mildly helpful, but I still felt depressed after several months of once-weekly visits. I was also prescribed an antidepressant, which actually made me feel worse. I felt hyperactive and nervous in the beginning, and eventually ended up feeling like an emotionless zombie who needed to sleep 12 hours per day. As a last resort, I read Feeling Good and started doing the written exercises. The improvement was almost immediate! Unlike a lot of people, it didn't take me months to feel better. Probably within a week of applying the techniques from the book, my score on the BDI was reduced to 5, which means no depression! I still apply the techniques on a regular basis to keep myself depression free, but the chapters on changing your whole outlook on life and self esteem have made such a difference for me that I never get anywhere near as depressed as I used to, no matter what's going on in my life.
By using cognitive therapy instead of drugs, I have a whole range of emotions. But I'm able to control my emotions, and am overall a happy person. When I was using antidepressants, I sometimes didn't feel depressed, but I didn't feel good either--basically I had no emotions. I believe the drug companies would like us to believe that that drug-induced emotionless state is the way we're supposed to feel, but based on my experience, it's simply not worth it to have no negative (or positive) emotions. I'd rather experience the whole range of emotions and control them without the use of chemicals. Is depression an organic brain disorder? Perhaps for some, but surely not for as many people as the drug manufacturers would lead us to belive. That's my experience with this wonderful book.

Good Intro to CBT and Antidepressants, July 17, 2005
Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) is a proven self-help method for improving two conditions that afflict more people every decade: (1) depression, and (2) anxiety. As a self-help book, I found other self-help books to be clearly superior: E.g., Albert Ellis' "A Guide to Rational Living," and Elliot Cohen's "What Would Aristotle Do?"

Burns' book is good, but these two other books are substantially better. According to CBT and REBT (which is a variant of CBT), our pattern of thinking often leads us into depressive moods and high anxiety. Retooling our thinking process does much to alleviate moods and reduce anxiety. Obviously, endogenous depression still requires medication, but many people who experience exogenous depression are apparently able to avoid all medication with the help from these books. For that reason alone, these books are goldmines.

Our destructive thinking, whether or not one is depressed or anxious, often leads us into blind alleys and self-destructive behavior. Burns', Cohen's, and Ellis' books make great strides in helping one overcome the destructive thought processes by helping one think more critically. By shining light on our thinking process and how to think critically, many people's depression and anxiety are significantly assauged.

What these the Cohen and Ellis books lack, Burns appropriately provides: Probably the best general information on antidepressant and antianxiety medications in print. If you are on, or are considering, antidepressant or antianxiety medications, Burns' book is one of the best lay resources available.

Surprisingly, many physicians who prescribe these medications lack the basic information that Burns fortunately provides. He distinguishes between SSRIs, TCAs, MAOs, etc. (Don't worry if you don't know these acronyms. Burns explains them thoroughly, and just as importantly, provides profiles of their side effects.) No naive patient of antidepressants ought overlook this very helpful book.

The Only Self-Help Book You Will Ever Need...EVER!!, December 9, 2006
Dr. Albert Ellis once opined that the goal of therapy should be not only to help the patient "feel better," but also to "get better." This book not only does both, it also will help you stay better.

Dr. Burns is a cognitive-behavioral therapist who believes that the first-line treatment for Axis I mood disorders should be CBT. He is not big on psychpharmacology, however, he is not wanting to hearken back to the "stone ages" before such medication was invented. He simply believes that CBT, which has been empiracally proven to be efficacious by studies too numerous to mention, is the type of therapy that works best, lasts longer, and is healthier for the client.

CBT holds that it is maladaptive thinking that is to blame for what psychologically ails us. It is not the events themselves which are the cause of mood maladies, but rather our perception of them; distorted thinking and information processing.

This book is not a quick read, as are so many self-help books. There are no easy answer, nor are there easy solutions that are proffered. Rather, Dr. Burns, methodically, logically, and cogently lays out strategies that will not only help you feel better, get better, but also say better because after reading this book (carefully and mindfully) you will be equipped to be your own therapist, which is the main goal of CBT.

This is the type of book that the layman can use over and over again as a reference/refresher in case they relapse.

Dr. Burns has performed a great public health service by sharing his expertise in this book as Depression, and its concomitant, related mood disorders are one of the most pressing public health issues of our time.

Walking My Talk..., November 9, 2000
...This book is the "IT" book of psychiatry and
psychology. More psychiatrists recommend this book to their clients
than any other. It is also the bestselling book on psychology or
psychiatry that exists! Instead of writing another review on this
book, I decided to "Do It" so to speak. If this review can
help anybody, than it was worth the writing.

In the forward, Burns
talks in detail about a comprehensive study that was made on this
book. This is in the 1999 forward. Eighty people were given this book
to read in twenty-eight days. 70% recovered from a major depressive
episode from just reading this book in that time. The exercises were
optional. Before you order this book, Burns does stipulate that if you
have even had "moderate depression" for several weeks, than
you will need professional help in order to help you get through the
program. Also, any suicidal thoughts or tendencies. I am fortunate. I
took the BDC on page 20 and scored 58. Now, this is "severe
depression". The BDC is the "Burns Depression
Checklist". I have also been diagnosed as having a "Major
Depressive Disorder" by many psychiatrists. But I have help. Both
a therapist and a psychiatrist. So intead of just writing yet one more
review based on my opinions, why not do the program and pass on the
results? I e-mailed a daily report to my friend and follow Amazon.com
reviewer, Edgar Bridges. I began both reading and doing the exercises
on October 12th, 2000. I scored a 55 on the BDC one week after
starting the program. This is still "severe" depression. Two
weeks after starting, I got a 35 on the BDC!!! This is "moderate
depression". Yes. I was very happy. But more suprised than
happy. A little bit shocked. That is the good news. After the third
week, I scored a 54. Bad news. I finished the entire program yesterday
and I scored a 56. A 3% decrease in depression. I did the "triple
column" technique everyday for twenty-eight days straight. I did
two of the "anti-procrastination" techniques as well for 14
days. I had memorized the ten distortions entirely and used them daily
when they arose. So it failed. I am sorry to say. But it might work
for you. After going to only one Alcoholics Anonymous meeting during
this time, my score dropped the next day to 35! Then in several days,
it was back up again to "severe depression". Why? I took the
BDC everyday and examined the score for the days after I talked to
people and got outside and so forth. No decrease in the score. I can
only assume, and perhaps quite wrongly, that it is "human
intimacy" that did it. That's my review on this book. Based on
experience rather than conjecture.

Excellent cognitive-behavioral therapy for depression, July 9, 1999
A very useful book. While depression has been associated with chemical changes in the brain, there is no proof that depression is caused by these changes. It could equally well be that depression is what is making the changes occur, and that we can in fact manage our depression without drugs.

I have personally found this to be the case. With the help of this book I have been able to stop taking antidepressants. I find dealing with the issues that caused my depression to be much more useful than medically treating the symptoms. David Burns offers practical methods of dealing with your sadness and despair without having to endlessly dredge up your past. You can acknowledge your past and its unfairness, while dealing with your depression in the present.

Cognitive-behavioral therapy is the only type of therapy that has been proven useful in dealing with depression. Burns offers an excellent example, and a much cheaper one than medication for those without health insurance (and a safer one for those with -- after all, the newer drug therapies haven't been around long enough yet for doctors to know about long-term side effects).

I recommend this book most highly.

Feel Good Today., January 11, 2010
Feeling Good is not only a great self-help book, it's a way of thinking. And by that I mean, it's your thoughts that usually cause the problems, right? Well, this book will discuss that and tell you how to use congnitve behavior therapy to get through this and onto feeling good. I liked it very much and would defintely recommend it to those who do suffer from nervous disorders. It's a great read that can generate great results. I also would recommend What if.? My Story of Panic Attacks.

Changed the way I live my life..., December 12, 2008
I went through a real "rock bottom" point and turned to this book for guidance and hope. I'm in my mid 20's and just needed something/someone to direct me into literally - feeling good. This book taught me so many simple things like turning off the negative side of my brain and to focus on the positive, something I thought was impossible. Within the book there are worksheets to help you manage your thoughts to really get you started on "feeling good" asap. I highly recommend this book from people that are severely depressed to just feeling down. If you cant afford a shrink, or just need some guidance... THIS BOOK IS FOR YOU! It honestly has changed my life, I'm so thankful for this find!! ... Read more

Editorial Review

DO YOU:

·dream about writing the Great American Novel?

·regret not finishing your paintings, poems, or screenplays?

·want to start a business or charity?

·wish you could start dieting or exercising today?

·hope to run a marathon someday?

If "yes," then you need…THE WAR OF ART

Now, in this powerful, straight-from-the-hip examination of the internal obstacles to success, bestsellingauthor Steven Pressfield shows readers how to identify, defeat, and unlock the inner barriers tocreativity. THE WAR OF ART is an inspirational, funny, well-aimed kick in the pants guaranteed togalvanize every would-be artist, visionary, or entrepreneur.

Steven Pressfield enjoys great international success as a bestselling novelist.But in order to reach the top he had to do a lotof work to fight the inner demons that told him he couldn’t make it.THE WAR OF ART is his challenge to creative block,and his succinct, straight-from-the-hip style will help every reader unleash their personal ambitions, be they literary, artistic,or business-minded.

According to Pressfield, the internal obstacle to success is Resistance.Resistance is the difference between the life you leadand the life you want to lead, and can take many forms.Pressfield shows readers how to identify and defeat Resistance atevery turn and challenges them to change their amateurish, unsuccessful habits into a professional attitude that can getthe job done. Finally, Sun Tzu for the soul!

Inspirational, funny, and a great kick in the pants, THE WAR OF ART is the perfect book for anybody who had a goalcircumvented by life and circumstance:which is to say, you and everybody you’ve ever met. ... Read more

Reviews

A powerful and potentially life-transforming book!, September 10, 2004
Know the enemy, know yourself, wrote Sun Tzu in his classic The Art of War, and your victory will be certain. For anyone who is stuck at a level below their God-given potential, who can't seem to get on track to do the things they need to do in order to achieve their most authentic goals, knowing the enemy and knowing yourself are one and the same.

Steve Pressfield's magnificent little book The War of Art is about being more creative - but more important, it's also about fulfilling your potential as a human being. To do this, he says, you must overcome Resistance (the "R" is capitalized be Pressfield to represent the fact that it is a very real entity - as real to your authentic Self as Charles Manson or Genghis Khan were to their victims).

The whole aim of Resistance, says Pressfield (who is the bestselling author of The Legend of Bagger Vance and Gates of Fire), is to prevent you from doing the work you are called to do. Resistance wants you to take it easy, to be ordinary and mediocre, to take the low road. Resistance is the reason so many people place a basket over the brilliant candle that shines within them. The fight against Resistance is, Pressfield says, a war to the death.

Pressfield disputes the standard motivational clichďż˝ that you can have, do, or be anything if you follow the right formula and just work hard enough. Rather, he says: "We are not born with unlimited choices... Our job in this lifetime is not to shape ourselves into some ideal that we imagine we ought to be, but to find out who we already are and become it."

There are two occasions when Resistance will be the most relentless, and they are related. The first is when something really matters to you. "Rule of thumb: The more important a call or action is to our soul's evolution, the more Resistance we will feel toward pursuing it." If your lifelong goal is to be a writer, a rejection letter from a publisher will hurt a whole lot more than if you submitted your manuscript on a dare.

The second occasion that Resistance is most dangerous is related to what Pressfield calls "the mother of all fears," namely the fear that you will actually succeed. Resistance builds as you get closer to the finish line. "At this point, Resistance knows we're about to beat it. It hits the panic button. It marshals one last assault and slams us with everything it's got." There is a real paradox here: the closer you get to reaching that proverbial tipping point, where things are really starting to click, the more likely you are to engage in the self-sabotaging behavior that is the calling card of Resistance.

Pressfield offers a prescription for defeating Resistance. You must, he says, become "a pro." But he does not mean that in the sense of earning a living at the work, in the sense of being a member of a certain profession, or in the sense of being looked up to by your peers. Rather, he simply means showing up every day with your lunch pail and getting to work. Much of the book has to do with how you make this transformation so that you can do the work that you are called to do.

I have made a small poster with this quote from Steve's book and placed it prominently above my computer: "There never was a moment, and never will be, when we are without the power to alter our destiny. This second, we can turn the tables on Resistance. This second, we can sit down and do our work." My own next book has been on the back-burner for far too long, victim to Resistance. But now I have a weapon: Every time Resistance stands between me and doing my work, I pull Steve's book from out of my bookshelf and beat Resistance over the head. Then in that very second, I sit down and do my work. And it's working.

Inspirational and prescient, July 15, 2004
I posted a review of this book over a year ago, right after I read it for the first time. I gave it three stars at that time because, other than the first section dealing with resistence in a practical sense, I found the rest of the book to be too esoteric. Since then I have done a tremendous amount of soul-searching regarding my inner drive to become a writer. That search took me back to this book recently, and after reading it for a second time I have to say I don't know what I was thinking when I gave it only three stars. Today I truly believe it is worthy of five stars because it struck deep into my conscience and helped me understand my situation and the situation of others like me. Anyone who is trying to tap into the inspiration they sense burning somewhere inside them that tells them to go out and write - or to create any other kind of art - will benefit tremendously if they open their minds and prepare themselves for rigorous introspection. This is not a simple self-help or how-to book. It is a truly profound examination of the human mind and the quest for fulfillment that we all feel.

Overcome resistance to living the life you love, November 5, 2003
If you have a passion in your life -- writing, painting, music, sculpting, dancing, acting -- and if this passion is the reason you believe you're alive, then check out this book. One of Pressfield's premises is that we're all MEANT for something, we're each here for some reason, to create something in the world (Eternity is in love with the productions of time) and if we don't live for and through this, then we're wasting our time. He blasts away even the most stubborn and alluring resistances - the excuses we tell ourselves for not doing the work. This book can rev you up -- it's short (165 pages)and powerful. I breezed through the book in a few hours and felt energized. Pressfield puts art-making in perspective, puts procastination in perspective, and delivers in a direct, conversational tone -- as one human who is trying to live a life that means something to another. I've read a lot of "how to" books and most don't live up to their hype. This one deals with how to overcome the obstacles of ambition and how (and why) to discipline yourself. As much as a cliche as it may sound, it will make a difference in how you look at what you do. Give it to anyone else you know who wants to write, paint, act, dance, compose, and wants to follow their dream.

A Work of Compulsion, May 27, 2002
One thing is certain: Steven Pressfield was compelled by whatever source provides him inspiration for his craft to write this book. This is not a labor of love; it is a labor of compulsion. The book is also certain to draw extreme reviews: some will love it; others won't. Middle ground is unlikely. The book manifests itself: I don't think Steven Pressfield cares if he sells one copy, nor does he care whether we like it or not. He only knows that this was a book he had to write. I'm glad he did.

The War of Art is a real-world extension of Bagger Vance, the Jonathan Livingston Seagull of the `90's. Pressfield's presentation draws comparison to many statements that have floated around in my head over the years. JLS said "You have the freedom to be yourself, your true self here and now." In the second edition of the Star War series (in the late `70's?) Yoda tells Luke Skywalker, "There is no try." Either do it or don't do it. The War of Art makes a strong case for both of these concepts.

I was a fighter pilot for nearly 10 years, edited and published a newspaper for two, and entered the battlefield of corporate America two decades ago. As I concluded Pressfield's book, I was overwhelmed with the bittersweet feeling that I truly wished I had read this book when I was 20, not 52. Only having read one or two randomly selected pages when I got the book, I emailed by 20-year-old son in New Hampshire and made it "mandatory reading." He called me within 48 hours, and I couldn't fail to see the impression The War of Art had made on him. "Dad," he said, "For the first time in my life, I can see all the time I've wasted ...." The impact was as real as it was profound.

I read once that "the only thing in the middle of the road is yellow stripes and dead armadillos." Pressfield powerfully demands that the reader has to make affirmative choices to accomplish any calling in life; there is no middle of the road. He deftly explains why so few people reach their own God-given and inspired potential and offers his path for reaching that potential.

Even at 52-years-old, I will change my life having read this book. I sense my son will too. There are concepts that I cannot nor would I fully commit to. Nonetheless, Pressfield has professed an approach to life, be it art or otherwise, that will work. Whether you love this book or hate it, I guarantee it will make you think, and it will alter your approach to life, the path you've taken and the pace of your journey.

Will knock writer's block to pieces & get you back to work, August 10, 2003
Are you creative, yet are facing writer's block? Read this book and it'll shake your block loose and help set you free!

In this slim volume Stephen Pressfield discusses the inner naysayer we all have within us, also referred to as an inner critic by most writers.This book helps you identify and defeat the negative self talk any creative person must deal with. It does so in a serious tone, sprinkled with lots of humor. For example, the heading of one of his essays is "How To Be Miserable" - it was an essay that had me chuckling. It also had me nodding my head as I recognized myself in what he wrote.

Written using a variety of short essays, this book is easy to pick up and read at any point. I read it from the first page to the last, in order. You don't necessarily need to do that to benefit from Stephen Pressfield's wisdom about the inner struggle creative people face from day to day. Read from beginning to end does have it's advantages though -- the author takes aim at resistance, procrastination, rationalization, and finally at the end winning the war. When we win the war of art we are free to create, free to be truly happy.

This is one of the best books I've read on the subject. It helped me identify my own foibles then smash the blocks holding me back. I saw myself in each page and triumphed along with the author. This is an excellent book for any creative person. I highly recommend it.

Great book but is it helpful?, June 24, 2008
First I want to say that I love this book. Second, I need to say that there might be better ways to attack procrastination.

The first time I read this, everything in it spoke to my problem of procrastinating from writing. The voice in the book is no-nonsense and raises the stakes of completing your work. He speaks of resistance as an enemy that must be conquered at all costs. He describes how to think of yourself as a professional to put yourself at some remove from your work. He also throws together a mythology of creativeness that is almost Jungian (or from Blake). The voice is that of a hard boiled detective. Really I'm not doing justice to how wonderful these short essays are to read.

However, after reading this book, I worked hard for a short while and again stopped. I can't blame the book for this.

I would argue that this book tries to encourage one to work by raising the stakes. And let me tell you, this book is very inspirational. It will get you working. It will instill in you the idea that your work is important. As the title says, you must attack resistance.

I have personally found that raising the stakes works only in the short term. As much as I love this book, it does nothing to lower my anxiety. Even though Pressfield makes clear that one has to be a professional and not wrap up ones self worth in their work, the overall message is the more resistance you feel, the more you must do this. And it is very very important you do this ("this" being anything you want to do but feel resistance toward doing).

Another way of overcoming procrastination is to lower the stakes. Instead of thinking "I must do this", one can think "I choose to do this" or one can still survive and thrive even if your chosen mission goes uncompleted. If you increase your self esteem in other areas of your life, rather than focusing on that role of "creator", it frees you up to be pulled toward the job - rather than being pushed by the feeling that you "have to" do something. A sense of security is the best motivator for doing creative work.

JULY 24 2009 (1 year and 1 month update): I disagree with this review I wrote a year ago. After completing a first draft of a book, I realized much more how valuable this book is. I keep it on my desk. I would now rate it five stars, because what I said in this review was just me trying to be rationalize my block. I felt I needed to correct the review because this book touches a nerve in me that I can't explain very well. But what I said at first could easily hold true for somebody, so I'll leave it up.

A smartly written work worthy of keeping close at hand, August 8, 2003
It's the main title that grabs your attention, pulls you in, if you will. THE WAR OF ART...clever...reminds you of one of the original self-improvement classics by that Oriental fellow, the book that's probably politically incorrect to admit that you like or even have read but is indispensable for getting your cause from Point A to Point B. It's the subtitle, however --- "Break Through Your Blocks and Win Your Inner Creative Battles" --- that is the money line, the reason that you buy it, read it, and keep it. At the least, this slim volume will reaffirm what you may already know, and at best change how you live, or don't live, your life.

Steven Pressfield is best known as a fiction writer. THE LEGEND OF BAGGER VANCE is one of those titles that is, alas, possibly better known than the author. As Pressfield notes in THE WAR OF ART, he was hesitant at first to step outside of fiction writing. It is that hesitance --- what Pressfield dubs as "Resistance" with a capital 'R' --- that keeps us, at least some of us, from doing what we want to do, from writing the Great American Novel to walking up to Beverly D'Angelo when we see her walking in Upper Manhattan and saying, "Hi! Remember me? I went to Kindergarten with you and I have a film idea that will revitalize your acting and singing career!" Or dieting. Or starting a company. You get the idea.

Understanding Resistance is important; Pressfield spends a third of THE WAR OF ART discussing his definition of Resistance, another third on ways to combat it, and the final third of the book discussing what lies beyond Resistance. I have to confess that the last section of THE WAR OF ART hit me like a brick wall, or I hit it. But I still have to recommend this work, for the same reason that I recommend driving an automobile, though I have not a clue regarding the science of internal combustion. Like THE WAR OF ART, it works.

Pressfield hits it right on the head when he notes that people are afraid of success. I have two friends. One is probably the best writer I know. He is afraid to finish anything, to send it in, to have someone other than myself and maybe three or four other people look at it. My other friend has three or four new ideas a day --- inventions, songs, concepts, businesses, you name it; he has 20 things going at once. My second friend walked up to a gentleman in a karaoke bar --- a gentleman you would know --- and within 20 minutes talked him into cutting a rock 'n' roll record. The difference between my two friends is that the first can't break through Resistance, while the second drives through it with a steamroller every morning.

Pressfield gets into the nitty-gritty of breaking through what holds you down and back, all in short, to-the-point chapters (one of which is only three sentences long). This style makes THE WAR OF ART easy to digest and, more importantly, easy to refer to for the occasional refresher point or pep talk.

THE WAR OF ART is intended as a guide to unlocking the barriers to creativity, using the keys that you already have but may have forgotten about or misplaced. While all of it may not be for everybody, I cannot imagine that anyone could pick up this canny, smartly written tome without finding at least one element that they will take, and use, for their betterment for the rest of their lives. THE WAR OF ART is a work to keep, and to keep close at hand.

--- Reviewed by Joe Hartlaub

Unlock your true potential, May 26, 2008
I had a good time reading the pages of this book and found myself laughing out loud, and enjoying how Steven Pressfield shares how to break through the blocks and win our inner creative battles. He explains in great detail how resistance works in life and can sabotage us from pursuing our dreams (big and small). He explains where procrastination comes from and the many faces it can take on so one can tackle it and stop it from ruling our lives.
While reading, I thought that a great follow up to this book is Working on Yourself Doesn't Work: A Book About Instantaneous Transformation by Ariel and Shya Kane because their book presents 3 principles of Transformation that have supported me in shifting that very resistance Steven describes. After reading the Kane's books, (the other two are How To Create a Magical Relationship and Being Here: Modern Day Tales of Enlightenment), all aspects of my life have transformed and the pursuing of my dreams happens effortlessly and organically.
I strongly recommend these books to anyone who wants to unlock their true potential and live the life of their dreams.

Brilliant and Deep, June 25, 2002
Steven Pressfield's Book the "War of Art" is hands down, absolutely the best book of its kind in the self-improvement genre.

This first class book should be required reading for everyone in Hollywood and any body who has to follow there own path.

Mr. Pressfield has the uncanny and brilliant ability to simplify and comprehend a complex subject and distill it down to its finer points.

The Subject? Combating the resistance of others and continuing on your own journey successfully, regardless of the obstacle. In other words he explains how to stay on your own heroes journey and live the life we need to live. Mr. Pressfield asks the reader what would you do if you knew you could not fail.

From the mirrors on the cover to its last page you will find the book funny, insightful, deep, griping, forthright, and kind; just fantastic and outstanding in every way.

This is an important book and you will not be disappointed.

Worth the relatively high price per word!, June 1, 2002
Buying this book was a gamble. It sat provocatively upon the shelf as a slim volume shrink-wrapped on the shelf. When I took the dive and purchased it, I realized many of the pages were only a quarter or half filled with text. Had I been cheated? Absolutely not. You don't get a lot of words for your money, but you do get wisdom. Pressfield puts forth the highly believable theory that many of our problems in life come from not fulfilling our calling and from an almost pathological need to take the path of least resistance instead of the path of greatest fulfillment. He repeats the old advice about writers being committed to write everyday, but there is much more about the nature of inspiration and how to focus on the work itself, rather than obsessing about the fruits you hope to obtain. The icing on the cake is that Pressfield takes you through his own history and shows how he finally triumphed over his own self-defeating behavior. This is one self-help book worth the price of admission! ... Read more

Editorial Review

This groundbreaking Pulitzer Prize-winning book sets the standard for interdisciplinary writing, exploring the patterns and symbols in the thinking of mathematician Kurt Godel, artist M.C. Escher, and composer Johann Sebastian Bach. ... Read more

Reviews

Way out of my comfort zone, but still great., June 2, 2000
I'm here to witness that even people as seriously math-challenged as I am can participate in this wonderful book. It took me a *long* time to read-- I flipped back and forth, beat the pages up, asked my more math-oriented friends for help. I spent forever trying to solve the MU exercise. It was worth it. I still feel like I understood parts of it only in intuitive flashes, but those flashes showed me a room more interesting than most of the well-lit chambers ordinary books provide.

Reading Godel, Escher, Bach is like joining a club. People who see you reading it will open spontaneous conversations and often gift you with unexpected insights. (I had a fascinating conversation with a total stranger about Godel's theorem.)

Wish I could give more than five stars.

A Profound Meditation On Human Creativity, October 1, 2000
G�del, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid debates, beautifully, the question of consciousness and the possibility of artificial intelligence. It is a book that attempts to discover the true meaning of "self."

As the book introduces the reader to cognitive science, the author draws heavily from the world of art to illustrate the finer points of mathematics. The works of M.C. Escher and J.S. Bach are discussed as well as other works in the world of art and music. Topics presented range from mathematics and meta-mathematics to programming, recursion, formal systems, multilevel systems, self-reference, self-representation and others.

Lest you think G�del, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid, to be a dry and boring book on a dry and boring topic, think again. Before each of the book's twenty chapters, Hofstadter has included a witty dialogue, in which Achilles, the Tortoise, and friends discuss various aspects that will later be examined by Hofstadter in the chapter to follow.

In writing these wonderful dialogues, Hofstadter created and entirely new form of art in which concepts are presented on two different levels simultaneously: form and content. The more obvious level of content presents each idea directly through the views of Achilles, Tortoise and company. Their views are sometimes right, often wrong, but always hilariously funny. The true beauty of this book, however, lies in the way Hofstadter interweaves these very ideas into the physical form of the dialogue. The form deals with the same mathematical concepts discussed by the characters, and is more than vaguely reminiscent of the musical pieces of Bach and printed works of Escher that the characters mention directly in their always-witty and sometimes hilarious, discussions.

One example is the "Crab Canon," that precedes Chapter Eight. This is a short but highly amusing piece that can be read, like the musical notes in Bach's Crab Canon, in either direction--from start to finish or from finish to start, resulting in the very same text. Although fiendishly difficult to write, the artistic beauty of that dialogue equals Bach's music or Escher's drawing of the same name.

As good as all this is (and it really is wonderful), it is only the beginning. Other topics include self-reference and self-representation (really quite different). The examples given can, and often do, lead to hilarious and paradoxical results.

In playfully presenting these concepts in a highly amusing manner, Hofstadter slowly and gently introduces the reader to more advanced mathematical ideas, like formal systems, the Church-Turing Thesis, Turing's Halting Problem and G�del's Incompleteness Theorem.

G�del, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid, does discuss some very serious topics and it can, at times, be a daunting book to handle and absorb. But it is always immensely enjoyable to read. The sheer joy of discovering the puns and playful gems hidden in the text are a part of what makes this book so very special. Anecdotes, word plays and Zen koans are additional aspects that help make this book an experience that many readers will come to feel to be a turning point in their lives.

Like every other book written by Hofstadter, G�del, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid, has an index and a bibliography that must be noted as exceptionally well done.

Although filled with English wordplay, this book is in no way tied to the American origin of its author. For years, it was thought that G�del, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid, would be impossible to translate, but so far, it has successfully been translated into French, German, Spanish, Chinese, Swedish, Dutch and Russian.

A profound and beautiful meditation on human thought and creativity, this book is indescribably gorgeous and definitely one of a kind.

Escape from predestination, December 14, 1999
It seems highly appropriate that Douglas Hofstatder should re-release his epic work now. His central theme plays so eloquently in this place and time: Every system folds in on itself, be it physics, mathematics, or any form of language. All these systems are inherently self-referential, and as such, take on a life of their own. A life their creators could never imagine. Many reviewers have focused on the explicit messages of the book, their likes or dislikes, but the great beauty of this work lies within the realm of what it does not say. It is, no doubt, the most difficult book I have ever read, and I have to admit it took me several false starts to finally get through the thing. It is so incredibly deep - one cannot simply wade through it like a sci-fi novel. But if you take your time, spend, say about a year on it - work through the TNT exercises, discover the hidden messages the author has left, read the bibliography - and at some point it will strike you; the incredible richness of the message. The book, you, the world, all of it IS open. The pages of this universe are blank, unwritten. Dr. Hofstadter has woven a message of eternal optimism, one that transcends even the infinite depth to the tapestry of topics spread before us: The great freedom that we, nature's most remarkable matrix, are part of a future without destiny. Even if we were created, any purpose impressed upon us is lost in a cacophany of unexpected relationships. Deterministic, yet infinitely complex and unpredictable. We can never understand anything completely, and thus every life can experience the magic of observing that which cannot be explained. This is a book of wonders, and you will never regret the time you spent on it.

A worthwhile effort to read, January 9, 2001
I first read GEB some 20 years ago as a high school senior/college freshman. Even though I was a mathematically inclined physics major, an amateur classical musician, and a lightning-fast reader, the book still took me a year to finish. This is the sort of weighty tome where one reads a chapter, and then sets the book aside for awhile to let things settle in. It's no wonder that a poll by New Scientist magazine of highly-regarded scientists had to be rephrased as "EXCEPT for Godel Escher Bach, what scientific or technical book would you take to an uninhabited island?"

I will cheerfully confess that I cannot remember all of the details of the book, and that there were times when I simply couldn't get at what Hofstadter was trying to explain. Still, some of Hofstadter's writing has stayed with me the past two decades--his classic analogy of Godel's theorem with a stereo system, his discussion of the difficulties of creating an "accurate" translation (using the beginning of "Crime and Punishment"), his wondrous tying-together of math, music, and art. The totally math-phobic will find these, and many other concepts, readily accessible and even symbol-free. Wish I could say as much for some "general audience" philosophy books!

hasn't aged well..., October 6, 2002
When this book first came out, I, along with probably most mathematically and scientifically minded people of my generation, would certainly have considered it one of the best books ever written. Hofstadter has refined the task of writing a book into almost an art form. Drawing on the central theme of "strange loops" (ideas that loop back on themselves in a paradoxical manner, as might be seen in the art of M.C. Escher), Hofstadter successfully draws together ideas from a large variety of different human pursuits. An important idea--shown to be connected to other ideas in artificial intelligence, music, and art--is Godel's incompleteness theorem, which shows that there are limits on our ability to prove concepts that may, nevertheless, be true. This, too, is based on a "strange loop"--these loops seem to crop up everywhere and Hofstadter spends a lot of the book showing how they are pretty much fundamental to human knowledge.

However, after reading the new preface in this 20th anniversary edition, I'm left with the sense that this once great book is now merely good. For one thing, Hofstadter seems to have evolved from a brilliant young man with a lot of great ideas into a somewhat cantakerous middle-aged man. He seems angry at the New York Times, and his readers, for not fully understanding the central message of the book. Yet he also excuses himself from making any attempt to update the book or bring the ideas in line with many of the enormous changes that have happened over the last 20+ years. It seems surprising to me that Hofstadter would constrain his own book to having only one central message--surely he should understand that a book of this complexity will mean many things to many different people, and that indeed is the reason for its popularity.

So, I still highly recommend this book, but I'm left just a little disappointed that Hofstadter seems somewhat at war with his readers and as a result, won't attempt to update the book or try to help us reconcile the many events of the last 20 years with the themes of his book.

Brilliant and *still* misunderstood!, June 30, 2003
I've been reading reviews of GEB for years, and the most fascinating thing about them, aprt from the near-uniform enthusiasm of the readers, is that almost none of the enthusiatic readers have any idea of what the book is actually about! The typical reader seesm to think of GEB as a jouyous romp through any number of fascinating bits of logic, math and science without any idea as to what Hofstader's actually doing.

Yes, it's about Goedel, and recursion, and "strange loops", and linguistics Bach and ants and all that- but only trivially. The bulk of the book is taken up with what amounts to a very entertaining tutorial that sets the reader up for the real thesis of the book. What Hofstadter has attempted in GEB is nothing less than a concise, bottom-up theory of mind. You can read it as a theory of AI, or a theory of human intelligence, but either way he's telling you how to construct an intelligent entity.

True, he doesn't really have a theory of *how* a self-aware being should arise from his metaphorical anthill, but then, neither does anyone else. But he does have a very good story as to how intelligence does arise in such conditions.

If you've read this book before without understanding what his aim was, read it again, with that notion in mind. And if you haven't read it, and you're the sort of person who enjoys mathematic and scientific amusements of any sort, well, read it and discover how much fun a speculative theory can be.

A Golden Braid with Very Many Strands, June 5, 2006
GEB: an Eternal Golden Braid is a difficult book to explain. It's a book about strange loops, recursivity, paradox, number theory, formal systems, molecular biology, Zen Buddhism, impressionism, and fugues. These concepts are introduced through the works of mathematician Kurt G�del, artist M.C. Escher, and composer J.S. Bach, as well as some other supporting characters, like Charles Babbage (the first one to think of an Analytical Engine, a mechanical device for churning out algebraic theorems) and Alan Turing (of Turing Test fame). And then, of course, there are the dialogues, populated by the Greek warrior Achilles, a tortoise, a crab, and an anteater. Out of this confusing mess of concepts Hofstadter attempts to grapple with a truth he feels lies at the heart of Artificial Intelligence and Human Consciousness--that it forms from the same tangled hierarchies as G�del's Incompleteness proof or Escher's "Print Gallery" or Bach's "Canon per Tonos" (a theme that changes notes according to a fixed system that somehow always returns to its starting note, one octave higher in pitch).

Much of the book deals with formal systems--meaningless symbol-shunting procedures for producing theorems from axioms--and the way they are mapped on to "truths" about the world (what Hofstadter calls "isomorphisms"). One of the most extensively used formal system in the book is called TNT, for `typographical number theory' (also one in a series of Hofstadter puns, as TNT, when joined with a process called G�del Numbering, tends to self-destruct), which is just a new way of expressing simple number-theoretical truths (such as the commutativity and associativity of addition; i.e., b+c=c+b and b+(c+d)=c+(b+d)). On the surface, formal systems seem utterly trivial. Hofstadter introduces them as a theatre on which strange loops emerge. Strange loopiness enters formal systems when they can express Epimenide's paradox, a single sentence that reads "This sentence is untrue." Hofstadter explains how this realization came to pass when a German mathematician named Kurt G�del discovered inconsistencies in Bertrand Russell and Alfred North Whitehead's "Principia Mathematica", a treatise meant to banish self-reference in set and number theories. Any formal system capable of expressing all number-theoretical truths can also be used to represent itself through a system of G�del Numbering, which is just a way of interpreting symbols in the formal system as large numbers. Any formal system powerful enough to represent itself through G�del Numbering can make the statement "There is no theorem with G�del Number G'", where G' is the G�del number for that statement. In other words, a powerful formal system will inevitably make claims that are paradoxical, inconsistent whether you call them true or false.

Hofstadter combines the strange loopiness of formal systems with the concept of isomorphisms to come to some conclusions about human consciousness. First, he claims that the brain has a formal system for representing concepts in the world that exhibits self-reference and self-modification in a tangled hierarchy, just like the simplified formal systems he introduces in the book, Escher illustrates, and Bach incorporates into his music. He takes his time making his case, ending each chapter with a dialogue between Achilles and a Tortoise, a convention Zeno used to prove the impossibility of motion, and Lewis Carroll burrowed in his Two-Part Invention. These dialogue's are usually esoteric and highly amusing, including a series on Achilles' record player and one of the Tortoise's records designed explicitly to create vibrations that destroy the record player. This is a parallel to the explosive self-repudiation of TNT--any record player that can produce a high fidelity representation of the magnetic strips on the record will destroy itself, and any record player that can't is useless as a record player. Another dialogue introduces an anteater who converses with an ant colony that is collectively cognizant, even if each individual ant isn't (a parallel to meaning arising from meaningless formal systems of neuron representations in the human mind). In the main text, Hofstadter introduces the reader to the computer languages of Bloop, Floop, and Gloop (Gloop is just theoretical, a self-altering program reminiscent of the tangled hierarchy of the human mind), simple programs designed to reproduce themselves (an analogue to strings of DNA that encode for DNA synthesizing enzymes), and the Zen concept of MU (where neither `yes` or `no` suffice, say MU, or `unask the question`).

Fans of M.C. Escher will want to take another look at his "Print Gallery", a picture of a man looking at a picture of a town that contains the gallery the man is in, and the picture he's looking at. This is a tangled bit of self-reference has a blemish at the lower right-hand corner of the picture frame (the picture frame in the print, which is in the center of the print). In this blemish M.C. Escher writes his signature, but Hofstadter points out that the "blemish" is an inescapable side-effect of the self reference. No consistent image could appear in that blemish, just as no consistent interpretation of Epimenide's paradox is correct. Human's don't have privileges access to the formal system of their representations of the world--the inviolate level of human consciousness is off-limits to our perception. "From this balance between self-knowledge and self-ignorance comes the feeling of free will (p. 713)," says Hofstadter. This is the central idea of his book. Formal systems are ubiquitous, and powerful formal systems exhibit tangled hierarchies. The human mind is no exception, and the "blemish" of human consciousness is that inevitable bit of self-ignorance that gives us free-will. By breaking it down to the saliencies of a formal system, Hofstadter has high regard for the prospects of Artificial Intelligence, which ought to be able to build upon a similar edifice.

This is a difficult book to read and understand. It's deeply compelling and reads differently each time. I recommend it to those who have a lot of time on their hands.

Many dialogues make light reading, December 1, 2005
You might have been recommended this by a friend, or come across web recommendations. Almost everyone gives it more than 5 stars! But...
you can think of many reasons why you do NOT want to read this. There is lots of maths (it is a book about maths!?), it is loved by geeks, and it seems to cover too many things (consciousness, intelligence, reductionism, holism, recursion, self and soul!)...

You don't know if you want to start on an epic 700 page book about abstruse stuff right now. Perhaps later.

Hold it! You can enjoy this book just because of the brilliant writing, the puzzles and wordplay that make it a dream of Renaissance-style writing. The Rule of Four, Hypnerotomachia, Name of the Rose etc can't match this brilliance.

I suggest a really easy way to start this book: Read a dialogue. Each chapter has an opening dialogue: Tortoise and Achilles and a few others spar; their verbal wizardry opens up new worlds; each is set to music, imitating the style of a Bach piece so closely you can almsot hear the music while you read. The main chapters discuss the serious stuff seriously. A typical dialogue is less than 5 pages; so give it a quick try NOW.... see if you enjoy the heady mix of literature, puzzles and deep stuff!

My favourite is Crab Canon.. this was the first bit written, the whole book was written around it. Crabs (supposedly) walk backwards; see the illustrations (Escher's art, Bach's score, both called Carb Canon) upside down, and then .. read the dialogue backwards.
Here it is: http://www.barryland.com/canon.html

Or try "Sonata by Unaccompanied Achilles": this has a couple of lovely little puzzles.
http://www.rdegraaf.nl/index.asp?sND_ID=141084

Or, ... oh! there's so many little gems to recommend.

And if you like the first dialogue you read, get the book. Then read the preface, and then read the dialogues - in order - and skip the chapters .. till later.
That makes it a great fun read.. and a short book in itself!

Then having enjoyed yourself, read from the beginning and enjoy the whole thing afresh... at yor own pace. I read the dialogues quickly, and absorbed the book over a year, solving word and logic puzzles, tripping over imagery and more ...

So, have fun with this great book. It might change your life, as it did mine.

Down the Rabbit Hole..., May 17, 2007
This is a difficult book.

Difficult to read. Difficult to understand. And, I'm finding, difficult to review. What's it about? Good question. The author, himself, isn't very clear on this point, describing it as "a metaphorical fugue on minds and machines in the spirit of Lewis Carroll." I'm not sure I can do better than that. I will tell you this, however: if the book has a "point," it does seem to be that man's consciousness is ultimately mechanical and, therefore, that there is no reason that machines cannot finally be intelligent in the same sense that man is. (And, in fact, be as man in just about every internal way.)

While I take issue with this conclusion, and some of Hofstadter's reasoning along the way, I don't think that my debating his points is the basis on which a prospective reader should decide whether or not to pick up this book. Instead, the prospective reader should know: that this is a lengthy and deep work. It will take a *long* time to read properly, and most readers should not read more than a chapter a day. Many of the sections, and especially the various dialogues that preface the chapters, are quite clever. (These dialogues are usually between Achilles and the Tortoise, of Zeno's paradoxes, and their friends.) Some of the chapters grow incredibly technical. The subject matters vary, wildly and rapidly, and there will be points in reading where you will question your investment.

In the end, you will feel good for having pushed through the hard bits. It will coalesce, more or less, into a whole. Whether you finally agree with Hofstadter's conclusions or not, you'll have learned much and thought about important topics you might otherwise not have.

A good book, certainly not for everyone... but, if you're the "right" audience--someone deeply interested in questions of intelligence, mathematics, computer science and free will, and possessed of a bit of an ironic sense of humor--then this book cannot be recommended highly enough.

Five stars, for the work it represents, and the doors it opens to the reader.

Remember: We're in Planesville, January 22, 2004
I give this book high marks. The read is difficult, I concede. However, remember that in order to make progress, oftentimes we must take a leap of faith. The book even argues that proving something to be true requires you to "just believe" because logic eventually runs out upon deconstruction. See chapter VII.

I have had similar trouble that others report. I have had to re-read parts to make sure I get his points, whether I agree or not. And yes, he conveys his ideas in what some may consider an offhand way. There is much value in the saying, "To be great is to be misunderstood."

You dont have to like this book. Just make sure you're certain why you do or don't like it. Is it because the Hof doesn't know what he is talking about, or because he "wastes" your time with his lingo and fictional prancing about? Or is it because there's a chance that you don't understand? I am not condescending readers who don't like GEB, but we too often rate someone's ideas based on our inability to understand and yes, sometimes be entertained immediately. Don't expect him to do all the work. What are you bringin' to the party?

This book is challenging. Once you have spent enough time with it, you might see that it requires you to challenge your understanding of things, take that leap of faith (it's not all about logic), suspend judgment, then see what you think when you get to the other side. Consider the section devoted to the topic of Euclidean vs. non-Euclidean geometry:

Euclid of Alexandria perfected the art of rigor in his Elements, becoming arguably the most influential mathematician in times of antiquity. He made a most convincing case for the accuracy and truthfulness of much of the fundamental geometry we know today. He did so by using five principals upon which to base the remainder of his volumes of assertion. Four of the five principles were based on truths quite simple and so understandable, for the most part we hold them to be self-evident. One of those (the first) was the notion of a straight line, as simple and direct as connecting point A to point B.

His work seemed universal, truthful, and beyond reproach, especially considering the painstaking efforts he went to prove the seemingly most basic of concepts. This all seemed well and good, until others, implicitly or otherwise, began to question the notion or suggest what a different version of what a straight line is. In other words: What if there was more than one type of straight line? How could this be?

To make a long story only slightly longer, we find that there in fact IS more than one type of straight line (what's the difference between a straight line drawn on a piece of paper and a straight line drawn on a basketball? hmmmm....), which spawned elliptical and spherical geometries. Turns out that Euclidean geometry is actually a subset of geometry, not the entire geometry. All these years we thought that a piece of the pie was the whole pie.

The point here is that you must endeavor to see outside what you know to be true. It's not always comfortable or seemingly conceivable, but we must accept a degree of uncertainty before we can realize a new level of certainty.

Give the book a shot. Maybe two. Suspend your judgment and take the hit. You'll see. Regards. ... Read more

Editorial Review

Since Darwin's day, we've been told that sexual monogamy comes naturally to our species. Mainstream science--as well as religious and cultural institutions--has maintained that men and women evolved in families in which a man's possessions and protection were exchanged for a woman's fertility and fidelity. But this narrative is collapsing. Fewer and fewer couples are getting married, and divorce rates keep climbing as adultery and flagging libido drag down even seemingly solid marriages.
How can reality be reconciled with the accepted narrative? It can't be, according to renegade thinkers Christopher Ryan and Cacilda Jethá. While debunking almost everything we "know" about sex, they offer a bold alternative explanation in this provocative and brilliant book.
Ryan and Jethá's central contention is that human beings evolved in egalitarian groups that shared food, child care, and, often, sexual partners. Weaving together convergent, frequently overlooked evidence from anthropology, archaeology, primatology, anatomy, and psychosexuality, the authors show how far from human nature monogamy really is. Human beings everywhere and in every era have confronted the same familiar, intimate situations in surprisingly different ways. The authors expose the ancient roots of human sexuality while pointing toward a more optimistic future illuminated by our innate capacities for love, cooperation, and generosity.
With intelligence, humor, and wonder, Ryan and Jethá show how our promiscuous past haunts our struggles over monogamy, sexual orientation, and family dynamics. They explore why long-term fidelity can be so difficult for so many; why sexual passion tends to fade even as love deepens; why many middle-aged men risk everything for transient affairs with younger women; why homosexuality persists in the face of standard evolutionary logic; and what the human body reveals about the prehistoric origins of modern sexuality.
In the tradition of the best historical and scientific writing, Sex at Dawn unapologetically upends unwarranted assumptions and unfounded conclusions while offering a revolutionary understanding of why we live and love as we do. ... Read more

Reviews

Sexy Beasts, July 4, 2010

This review originally appeared in Seed Magazine: http://seedmagazine.com/content/article/sexy_beasts/

When we think of the first swinger parties most of us imagine 1970s counter-culture, we don't picture Top Gun fighter pilots in World War II. Yet, according to researchers Joan and Dwight Dixon, it was on military bases that "partner swapping" first originated in the United States. As the group with the highest casualty rate during the war, these elite pilots and their wives "shared each other as a kind of tribal bonding ritual" and had an unspoken agreement to care for one another if a woman's husband didn't make it back home. Like the sexy apes known as bonobos, this kind of open sexuality served a social function that provided a way to relieve stress and form long-lasting bonds.

For the husband and wife team Christopher Ryan and Cacilda Jethďż˝ in their new book Sex At Dawn, this example is one of many that suggests the human species did not evolve in monogamous, nuclear families but rather in small, intimate groups where "most mature individuals would have had several ongoing sexual relationships at any given time." We are the descendants of these multimale-multifemale mating groups and, even though we've constructed a radically different society from our hunter-gatherer forebears, the behavioral and psychological traits our species evolved in the distant past still manifest themselves today. Ryan, a psychologist, and Jethďż˝, a psychiatrist, argue that understanding human sexual evolution this way helps to explain our species' unique creativity inside (as well as outside) the marriage bed. It may also shed light on why fidelity has been such a persistent problem for both men and women throughout recorded history.

For Ryan and Jethďż˝ there is little doubt that human beings are an exceedingly sexual species. As an example they detail how in 1902 the first home-use vibrator was patented and approved for domestic use in the United States. Fifteen years later there were more vibrators than toasters in American homes (today this number could be as high as fifty million nationwide). In 2006, according to U.S. Pornography Industry Revenue Statistics, people around the world--the majority of whom were probably men--spent an estimated $97 billion on pornographic material ($13.3 billion in the U.S. alone), a figure that exceeded the annual revenue of Microsoft, Google, Amazon, eBay, Yahoo!, Apple, and Netflix combined. To judge human sexuality based on consumption patterns, as Stephen Colbert would say, "the market has spoken." When this is combined with estimates that people engage in hundreds, and sometimes thousands, of copulations per child born (more than any primate, including chimpanzees and bonobos) there's little denying that the human animal is one sexy beast.

But why should a species often described as monogamous be so hypersexual? Monogamous animals by definition don't have to compete for reproduction and, as a result, are generally characterized by a low level of sexual activity. But according to Ryan and Jethďż˝ humans top a very short list of species that engage in sex for pleasure. "No animal spends more of its allotted time on Earth fussing over sex than Homo sapiens," they write. In fact, the animal world is filled with species who confine their sexual behavior to just a few periods each year, the only times when conception is possible. Among apes the only monogamous species are the gibbons whose infrequent, reproduction-only copulations make them much better adherents of the Vatican's guidelines than we are. In this way, Ryan and Jethďż˝ argue, repressing our sexuality should not be confused with reining in an "animal" nature; rather, it is denying one of the most unique aspects of what it means to be human.

The suggestion that humans did not evolve as a monogamous species is not as radical an idea as it may sound. In The Descent of Man Charles Darwin wrote, "Those who have most closely studied the subject [particularly the anthropologist Lewis Henry Morgan] believe that communal marriage was the original and universal form throughout the world." Yet ever since the nineteenth century anthropologists have struggled over how to identify the mating system of human beings. In 1967 George P. Murdock's Ethnographic Atlas reported that only 14.5% of modern preindustrial societies could be classified as monogamous. Yet, in the West, researchers commonly refer to humans as "serially monogamous," based on the pattern of repeated monogamous marriages throughout men and women's lifetimes. But with over half of divorces occurring because of infidelity and one in 25 dads unknowingly raising children that they didn't father, this is not a picture that fits comfortably with monogamy of any sort, serial or otherwise.

However, by looking at modern indigenous societies and comparing the findings of anthropologists with the latest results in behavioral psychology and biology, Ryan and Jethďż˝ piece together a remarkably coherent pattern from an otherwise fractured understanding of human sexuality. From societies that believe that multiple men are necessary for a successful pregnancy (what researchers refer to as "partible paternity") to those where not having an extra-marital tryst will cause a man to be labeled "stingy of one's genitals" by his female suitors, the authors conclude that marriage may be an established social arrangement among many hunter-gatherers but it's one in which sexuality is decidedly fluid. A range of physiological evidence from Western populations is further offered to support this position, from the year-round libido in both sexes, to the unusually large size of men's genitalia compared to other apes, to the shifting sexual strategy during various stages in women's reproductive cycle (and lest we forget multiple female orgasms?). All suggest that our species is adapted for several concurrent sexual partners.

This is, of course, not a new idea in human evolutionary research. Primatologist Sarah Hrdy advocated a promiscuous mating system for humans in The Woman That Never Evolved (1999) while psychologist David Barash and psychiatrist Judith Lipton detailed their own argument in The Myth of Monogamy (2001). In Sex At Dawn Ryan and Jethďż˝ cover some similar ground as these previous authors but provide a great deal of additional material that was unavailable a decade ago. They also emphasize the ways in which monogamy has been used as a means of controlling women in patriarchal societies and make a number of insightful connections between the invention of agriculture 12,000 years ago and how sedentary societies influence the structure of human mating. However, with a relaxed writing style and numerous examples from modern popular culture, their discussion of these topics remains readily accessible even to those who may be encountering such ideas for the first time.

Sex At Dawn is a provocative and engaging synthesis of the latest research on human sexual evolution that has the added benefit of being a joy to read. While the authors' conclusion that healthy relationships can be both committed and open may come as a shock to some readers, others will likely find it refreshingly honest. As their example of WWII fighter pilots emphasizes, human sexuality has numerous social as well as emotional functions and there has never been only a single path chosen by the human species. In offering a fresh look at a fascinating and controversial topic Sex At Dawn is a book sure to generate discussion, and one likely to produce more than a few difficult conversations with family marriage counselors.

Eric Michael Johnson received his masters degree in primate behavior and is now pursuing his PhD in the history of science. He writes on issues of science, politics, and history at The Primate Diaries.

A real mind-bender, July 11, 2010
This was a terrific read -- a sweeping (and well written, and funny) look at recent anthropological, zoological, and biological research all leading to a mind-bender of a conclusion: our prehistoric ancestors were wall-to-wall horndogs, men and women alike, with "multi-male/multi-female" sexual relations the likely norm for 95 percent of anatomically modern humans' existence. The nuclear family centered on a pair-bonded husband and wife, and the monogamy that comes with it, probably only date to the last 8,000-10,000 years, since the advent of agriculture.

Ryan and Jethďż˝ dismantle the more common Men-are-from-Mars, Women-are-from-Venus view -- i.e. men have a biological imperative to impregnate as many women as possible while keeping their wives monogamous so they (the men) support only their own genetic offspring, while women want to bond with wealthy, high-status males for their resources, but also to sleep around with the bad boys for their genes. R&J make a strong case that this sort of arrangement could only make sense in post-agricultural societies where concepts of property and paternal lineage become important, but that it would be meaningless in the hunter-gatherer groups that were the only form of human society for almost 200,000 years. When they get into the section on "sperm competition," things get reaaaally trippy.

The book kind of leaves you hanging as far as what this information means for modern humans, but that's probably a virtue. We have after all changed quite a bit from prehistoric times, and it's not as though our evolutionary history has to dictate our moral or social behavior today. Nowhere do the authors say everybody should walk out of their marriages and form hippie communes or anything like that. Instead, they say their goal is to start a conversation -- about sex, and how our prehistoric urges may help explain why so many people have trouble staying with one partner over their whole lives. It's a conversation-starter, all right.

I was tempted to take one star away because I felt throughout like they weren't presenting opposing views in the best light, but hey, it's a polemic. And it's a fun one, too. So let the arguments begin.

A book I wished was even more detailed!, July 2, 2010
"Cheating Rumors Fly About 'The Bachelor''s fianc�e": this pops up as I log on to type this. Why do Jake and Vienna spark headlines-- until the next couple, next week? What lures them to stray? After nearly two million years in the making, must we roam as randily as our bonobo cousins? After a hundred centuries of civilization and two millennia of convention, why hasn't monogamy won us over?

Psychologist Christopher Ryan and psychiatrist Cacilda Jethďż˝ present their findings about the prehistoric roots of our sexuality. They counter colleagues, clerics, and counselors who demand fidelity as our inborn, "natural" order. Ryan and Jethďż˝ assert that we carry within us another urge as we generate generations. "Multiple mating" occupied (at least) 95% of our ancestral experience. This replaces the accepted account in academia for men as "serial monogamists." For millions of years, most of our male and female predecessors "had several sexual relationships at any given time."(12)

Ryan and Jethďż˝ argue that we carry these patterns from foragers, who shared mates as they did goods and as they raised their young. It took a village to raise a child because any fertile father or mother in the village might have created that child. Before the fetishizing of paternity that accompanied the rise of agriculture, the surplus of wealth, and the imposition of fidelity to legitimize inheritance, foragers imprinted their wayward ways within us. The authors show why we, like Jake and Vienna, keep losing the battle of the sexes-- as if "cheating" can ever win us the dating and mating game-- against the innate urge to share ourselves intimately.

Part One explains why Darwin lacked sexual insight, and how Victorian inhibitions and his wife's censorship prevented biologists from advancing their own understanding of primate prototypes and parallels for human sexuality. Part Two applies anthropology. The authors dismiss "Flintstonization," our "widespread tendency to project contemporary cultural proclivities into the distant past."(32) Scientists who insist on "innate monogamy" perpetuate a primal myth similar to the Fall of Adam and Eve: "sexual deceit, prohibited knowledge, and guilt."(35)

The "double standard" of a caddish male and jealous female tells but half the story. It cuts out the woman's leading role as the mistress of her own reproductive and romantic fate. Helen Fisher and similarly acclaimed authorities "begin by assuming that long-term sexual monogamy forms the nucleus of the one and only natural, eternal human family structure and reason backwards from there."(75)

Instead, Ryan and Jethďż˝ emphasize in our desires and design a "natural structure." They advance a model of "diffuse nurturing," with all men called father and all women as mother. Such societies exist among today's foragers. "Could it be that the atomic isolation of the husband-wife nucleus with an orbiting child is in fact a culturally imposed aberration for our species -- as ill-suited to our evolved tendencies as corsets, chastity belts, and suits of armor?" (109) Might other familiar headlines-- of exhausted parents, broken families, and hostile children-- "be predictable consequences of what is, in truth, a distorted and distorting family structure inappropriate for our species?"

Using cross-cultural comparisons with foragers, Ryan and Jethďż˝ disprove any "universal" model of family structure or sexual behavior. "Societies in which women have lots of autonomy and authority tend to be decidedly male-friendly, relaxed, tolerant, and plenty sexy." (133) Men and women can get along, after all, if power and decision-making complement one another.

Why have such models been ignored or opposed? Western academics filter them through biases towards patriarchy; they perceive a matriarchy by distorting a mirror image that no society has been able to match. Ryan and Jethďż˝ correct this "confirmation bias" that leads scholars to look for "pair-bonding" as equivalent to lifelong marriage. They remind us how "mate" and "mating" convey, as does "love," (or "sleeping with" or "making love") our own socially constructed phenomena. Inspired by sociobiologist E.O. Wilson, the authors confirm that "human sexuality developed primarily as a bonding mechanism in interdependent bands where paternity certainty was a nonissue." (149) Many women in foraging societies never needed to barter their favors for child care, protection, food, or male fidelity.

Part Three detours into material foundations for such societies, not as we assume so poor, nasty, brutish, or short in lifespan (as Hobbes famously defined the primitive state). Communal belonging likely produced for many of our forebears less stress than we suffer. Conflicts could be avoided or neutralized.

An ancestral, open, relaxed sexuality gave way, with agriculture and wealth accumulation, to more toil, greater disease, and endemic inequality. Men enforced "an exchange of protein and protection for assured paternity." (99) We lost, as we turned civilized, our "innate capacity for love and generosity." Perhaps we bargained it away for refrigeration and dentistry, but we also produced slavery, discrimination, pain imposed upon women, and institutionalized fear of their sexual sway.

Part Four shifts back to our physical design. Why do we sexually endure a "symmetry of dual disappointment"? "It's as if we've been sitting down to dinner together, millennium after millennium, but half of us can't stop wolfing everything down in a few frantic, sloppy minutes, while the other half are still setting the table and lighting candles." (245)

Ingredients for boiling males and simmering females stir deep inside us. The authors teach us how we're engineered for "sperm competition" by penile streamlining, female capacity for multiple orgasm, and "female copulatory vocalization" as a way for letting the neighbors know that while one suitor might be soon spent, others might wait their roll on the savanna. By "sequential sex," the ready and willing woman could receive her multiple mates. Their ejaculated "post-copulatory" contributions maximized at a "cellular level" her fertility. Her body by "choosing among potential fathers" at a mechanical, non-conscious level of paternity -- as researchers now comprehend -- deepens profoundly the meaning of "natural selection."

This book moves briskly, but not all the sections show strong transitions. I sense Ryan's jocular tone balances his partner Jethďż˝'s sober data. Their chapters cram dense learning with a lively array of anecdotes and statistics on this endlessly engaging topic. You will learn how Pope John XXI died, whither the preference for "gangbang" over "reverse gangbang" among adult online offerings, why women's sense of smell may be better than men's, hear Mark Twain's rejoinders to morality, and tally Tiger Woods' scorecard. Despite casual organization, the verve and range of Ryan and Jethďż˝'s study ambitiously challenges norms of evolutionary psychologists.

The authors wonder if we might be moving into polyamorous relationships again today, as the nuclear family weakens. Instinctive patterns rewarding a non-moralized, positive promiscuity may in time, once and if our morality adapts, replace our rigid monogamy. They suggest sexual openness as an alternative to either male-female monogamy or the other configuration for "long-term pair bonding" as accepted by scientists in "the standard narrative," that of polygyny-- one man, many women.

Most adults lived in small bands, no more than "Dunbar's number" of 150, for nearly all of our evolution. Trusting their clan, people indulged several sexual relationships at once. This cohesive pattern endures in primitive societies studied today. While agriculture and privatization of property led to its suppression among ancient and modern cultures, its model of "open sexuality unencumbered by guilt or shame" offers us a rationale for Jake and Vienna's split. Part Five answers why even when bonded to one partner, couples may seek satisfaction elsewhere.

"Erotic plasticity" uncouples females from the male tendency, after a brief chance for open identity in their formation, to conform to a homosexual or heterosexual norm. Females throughout their lives show more acceptance of "variety and change" in mates of either sex. Males crave "necessary spice" -- if sprinkled by a partner in a different kitchen. Homosexuals (in too-rapid an authorial aside), persist due to a simple desire for bonding, one that can elude reproductive demands.

Couples seek emotional and sexual adventure so affairs go on; non-monogamy need not equate with debauchery. Our dominant culture that refuses to entertain "swingers" as other than as on a '70s sitcom episode suppresses even its therapists. Nowadays, when few would convince a gay man or lesbian to stop being such, our experts keep demanding divorce or "death-do-us part" as the only solutions to the embedded boredom, dissatisfaction, and incompatibility within many a "conventional marriage." The bonds of wedlock can be loosened, Ryan and Jethďż˝ whisper, without being broken.

"Novelty itself is the attraction," they insist, for male resistance to "monotomy," monogamy added to matrimony. They tell female readers this is an inexorable result of what another equation sums up in Spanish, where "esposas" means "wife" -- and "handcuffs." Where does this leave those vowed as pair-bonded? Ryan and Jethďż˝ hope this book will "provoke the sorts of conversations that make it a bit easier for couples to make their way across this difficult emotional terrain together, with a deeper, less judgmental understanding of the ancient roots of these inconvenient feelings and a more informed, mature approach to dealing with them." (305)

They don't dispense pat predictions about how "a more relaxed and tolerant approach to fidelity" might play out. A glance at polyamorous families and a remonstrance to therapists who force couples into "love it or leave it" hints at how this struggle towards acceptance might happen -- and how vehement the opposition might well be. Ryan and Jethďż˝ compare the slow advances granted to gay rights and same-sex marriage. Ryan and Jethďż˝ realize the odds against such tolerance attained by advocates of "free love," however ethically conceived by those daringly liberated.

Ryan and Jethďż˝ urge us "to seek peace with the truths of human sexuality." (310) They conclude this book with a (too brief) look at alternatives few promote even among the psychological and psychiatric professions. "But this we know: vehement denial, inflexible religious or legislative dictate, and medieval stoning rituals in the desert have all proved powerless against our prehistoric predilections."

They glimpse a future oriented towards love, cooperation, and generosity. Still, I reckon that, even in the most liberated of communities, free minded folks may likely hide their "low-key alternatives to standard, off-the-shelf monogamy." (308) Unlike our lusty ancestors, most mature moderns seem to draw the curtains, dim the lights, and lower the volume of "copulatory vocalizations." At least in my neighborhood.

Against social and cultural odds, Ryan and Jethďż˝ propose that we embrace a sexuality that does not diminish the energies wired into our essential selves. It might be too late for Jake and Vienna to kiss and make up. Savvier readers of this book -- rather than that headline -- may, however, reconcile themselves with these perplexing instincts, bred into us by our wandering progenitors over millions of years.

Riddled with errors and omissions, October 4, 2010
Ryan wants readers to think that he is challenging culturally imposed ideas of 'natural' monogamy in humans and revealing our supposed natural promiscuity. But then he attacks evolutionary psychology that also points out that humans are not naturally monogamous because, he says, they paint this promiscuity as a battle of the sexes when, he says, there is no natural battle between the sexes.

There are so many errors in this book it is difficult to know where to start. Ryan does not understand sexual selection and the significance of differential reproductive success or its reality. There are vast amounts of robust evidence supporting sexual selection but the author does not appear to have understood it. And increasing evidence for sexual conflict over mating. See eg:Sexual Conflict: (Monographs in Behavior and Ecology)

When the author gets to apes he then gets more things wrong. For example, he has mis-read and mis-represents relations between communities of chimpanzees. He confuses the fact that female chimpanzees (like bonobos) leave their natal group to breed in a different group with non-violent relations between the communities. All group-living animals have one or both sexes transferring elsewhere to breed. He twists this to make the totally erroneous point that relations between communities of chimpanzees are therefore not violent/antagonistic. If he had read the literature he would have realized that males stay in their natal group and there are never friendly interactions between males from different communities. Not even in bonobos. That bonobo females may socialize across communities when they meet is because they likely will have been born or spent some time in these other groups or will in the future. The males have not.
Also, the Tai study which showed females mating outside their breeding community has since been put down to error in DNA testing (Vigilant, Hofreiter, Seidel and Boesch, 2001, "Paternity and relatedness in wild chimpanzee communities")

The wider issue of the misrepresentation of bonobo sexual behavior also really needs to be addressed. Chimpanzee and bonobo females have been shown to copulate about the same number of times over time but for chimpanzees it is concentrated in narrower windows while for bonobo it is spread out especailly in the long interbirth interval between fertile periods. And bonobo sexuality per se has been vastly exaggerated - most of it is nothing more than a very brief touching of genitals - we, like chimpanzees, hug rather than stroke the genitals.
There is no evidence to support a bonobo-type sexual bonding in females in human prehistory, weak male bonding, sexual interaction with infants, and the mother-son the strongest bond.

For balance see these Yale lectures on the "Evolution of Sex and Reproductive Strategies" at [...]
# Evolution of Sex and Reproductive Strategies
# Sex and Violence Among the Apes
# From Ape to Human


As for partible paternity, in the Ache, for example, early death of men is common and a child whose father dies is often killed so having more than one father is a practical matter that means there is a provider for a child. More than two different potential fathers is very bad for women and their children and the sex with more than the husband is normally kept very discreet and not openly tolerated. Hardly a system preferable to our own.

The misrepresentation of Mosuo culture is a disgrace.
See the [...] "myths and misperceptions":

"To set the record straight; while promiscuity is certainly not frowned on like it is in most other cultures, most Mosuo women tend to form more long-term pairings, and not change partners frequently. It might be better described as a system of "serial monogamy", wherein women can change partners, but tend to do so relatively rarely; and while with one partner, will rarely invite another. I've personally met many Mosuo who have had a "walking marriage" relationship with the same man for twenty or more years."

Also this from[...] "Description of the Mosuo Minority":

"It has been theorized that the "matriarchal" system of the lower classes may have been enforced (or at least encouraged) by the higher classes as a way of preventing threats to their own power. Since leadership was hereditary, and determined through the male family line, it virtually eliminated potential threats to leadership by having the peasant class trace their lineage through the female line. Therefore, attempts to depict the Mosuo culture as some sort of idealized "matriarchal" culture in which women have all the rights, and where everyone has much more freedom, are often based on lack of knowledge of this history; the truth is that for much of their history, the Mosuo "peasant" class were subjugated and sometimes treated as little better than slaves."

As for copulation calls, I suggest people read the literature for themselves. Chimpanzees are quite complex and signalling to females (avoiding the wrath of females) is important. Bonobos don't really have them. Monogamous species don't need them because they do not live in social groups which means that while there is no need to signal to other males there is also no need to signal to the mate that she prefers him or needs mate-guarding as their isolation makes that obvious.

It is quite probable that should a species live in multi-male/multi-female groups, form pair-bonds and have 'fathers' and mate-guarding that a female will use a copulation call to signal to her mate that he satisfies her, she does not want another, he's the best etc etc. Sperm competition exists when females cannot choose pre-copulation (there's a lot of sexual coercion in primates see eg Sexual Coercion in Primates and Humans: An Evolutionary Perspective on Male Aggression Against Females) ie are not able to reject males. The best form of sperm competition for males is to keep that of other males out of the female in the first place. The best form form females is to only mate with desired male(s) and not have to mate with all-comers.

If a species evolves pair-bonding within a multi-male/multi-female setting there is no reason to presume that a copulation call cannot be used to reassure the mate and to be used to inform others that it is a satisfactory and established pair-bond. I suspect that pair-bonded birds in colonies make their mating obvious to others with calls etc and are not inviting others. Females, if they have the opportunity, do not simply submit to being mated by all and sundry. It just happens that they often have not had the choice.

There are just too many things in this book where the author is either simply blinded by his wishful thinking or has an agenda and is deliberately being economical with the truth.

Ryan says he does not know what should be done with the information he presents. I have one suggestion LOL.
No, we are not monogamous. Neither are we naturally that fond of healthy eating, or restraint in consumerism or the selfish exploitation of our planet. Simply indulging our natural drives is hardly something to be proposed without serious understanding of factors which Ryan has failed to properly understand or present. The book is so unbalanced it is in danger of toppling out of the reader's hands.

What is true about any species is that's its future is its offspring. This book has a hell of a lot to say about the sexual gorging of adults and next to nothing to say about children. Interestingly, evolutionary biology describes the male (usually) as putting his efforts into mating and the female (usually) into parenting.
Ryan is clearly far more a predictable male serving the demands of selfish genes that are fighting for a future via sperm (rather than via eggs) than he could ever consciously realize or, no doubt, accept. But selfish genes are pretty good at fooling the body - and mind - of their temporary home.

A pretty good take-down of the standard "battle of the sexes" narrative, August 8, 2010
Not as scholarly as I would have liked, and mostly old news if you're already familiar with "evolutionary psych" or human behavioral ecology studies published in the last 5-10 years. A great take-down of Trivers' and others' antiquated theories about paternity certainty, male parental investment, and the idea that both modern and pre-historical women are manipulative cheats, only after your wallet, in general. They also went after social scientists that use their popularity and success to make weird, moralized statements about "the society should be..." (Steven Pinker and a whole bunch of "monogamous pair-binding"- pushers), which was a fun read, if, still, old news if you're already familiar.

Could have used another edit though. Rather than presenting itself as a totally scholarly book and repeating itself over and over again (presumably so single chapters could be read and you'd still get their overall point), I wish it would have lopped off about 50 pages of redundancies. I also wish they'd paid more credit to evolutionary psychologists who put themselves out there in the 80's and 90's, and paved the way for these kinds of discussions to be had, rather than trying to distance themselves from them. I have no problem agreeing with 95% of this book, 90% of Pinker, 99% of EO Wilson, 85% of the Mean Genes guys, and 90% of Matt Ridley, etc. There is no need to be TOO snarky.

Good Book but Over Hyped, July 14, 2010
This text can be summarized to the following: Using a reductionist approach, we can separate the societal and biological influences to sexuality. Once we have done this, we can look at parts of sex that may be contradictory to our own nature and try to assess how paleo-lithic man thought of sexuality and how our bodies were engineered by the forces of evolution. With this lens, we can examine modern sexuality and critique what the authors call the "standard narrative". Essentially, the book boils down to a chapter by chapter deconstruction and attempt at disproving said standard narrative.

This book is currently receiving an insane amount of hype; as if they are uncovering some great hidden secrets about human sexuality. I think Dan Savage even came out saying this is the greatest sexuality book since Kinsey. I disagree with these claims, clearly the book is interesting and presents strong arguments against the standard narrative. However, it is not uncovering anything particularly new or presenting any world-changing findings. Rather, the book is a collection of facts and anecdotes, trying to construct a counterexample against the standard narrative. In this function, the authors do a reasonably good job. There are a few times throughout the book, their examples are a bit contradictory; for example, early on, the authors throw out the idea of even considering apes other than chimps or bonobos as a way to prove monogamy. However, later on, they use baboons and other apes to argue specific points. This bothered me a bit.

The book is very well written and reads quite quickly despite its length. The only part that I felt was missing was a critique to their argument, perhaps a chapter responding to their arguments. However, I suppose there will be articles and replies to this book posted online for me to read.

If you are limited on time, I suggest reading all of Part 1 and all of Part 5. You can skim the other parts but keep in mind that the book is presenting arguments to debunk the standard narrative, not necessarily prove that any existing model of sexuality is right or wrong.

At least two-thirds should have been cut out, October 26, 2010
This book needs serious editing--it's unbelievably padded. You will read over and over and OVER again that humans are closer to bonobos (non-monogamous) than chimps and other primates (monogamous). The book spirals out of control with simplistic, unsupported, pop observations--even that there are supposed chartered planeloads of Japanese middle-aged women flying to Thailand to meet guys (I sort of doubt the accuracy of the image). The book starts out okay--and I liked the term "Flintstonization" for our projecting back of cultural biases, but the book degenerates into incredible padding, repetition, and apparently unsupported statements.

Secular History of Sex, August 16, 2010
As I age it becomes clear how little I know. Bonobo, sexuality relates to anthopology? I suspected that monogamy never worked for anyone I knew. Many say at my age, 83, they see a twinkle in my eye; I call it lust. My wife has to read this book. This is the best read I've ever had at helping me to understand myself. I'm not sure I could say the same if I was a woman. I wish I had others to share my thoughts with, but as of now, other than Dan Savage, I don't know anyone who has read this book. Are their people in the Chicago area interested in sharing their thoughts? Perhaps a group of kindred spirits?

Best book since The Myth of Monogamy, August 27, 2010
Until I read Sex and Dawn, the best book on the subject, in my opinion, was The Myth of Monogamy. I think this book takes the subject to a whole other level. As a lifelong student of sex and a psychologist, I have read all the best and worst. I dare say, it will be at least another decade before a book this good comes out. If you want to really challenge your culture and religion bound ideas about sex and sexuality, this book will do it. When you are finished, you will understand just how programmed we have been by our culture and how many choices we can make ourselves, once we recognize this. Don't let society, religion or culture determine your sexuality and sexual expression, make your own choices and enjoy the huge capacity for sex and enjoyment that all of us have as humans.

Dr. Darrel Ray, author of The God Virus: How Religion Infects Our Lives and Culture The God Virus: How religion infects our lives and culture

Another perspective, August 26, 2010
Sex At Dawn gives an alternative perspective to the standard narrative of how humans have evolved in a constantly changing world. I enjoyed the humor as well as the science that is packed into this book. Whether or not you agree with the conclusions made by the authors it will open your mind and give you something to think about; as well as excellent fodder for conversation. Enjoy! ... Read more

Editorial Review

The best-selling author of The Big Switch returns with an explosive look at technology’s effect on the mind.“Is Google making us stupid?” When Nicholas Carr posed that question, in a celebrated Atlantic Monthly cover story, he tapped into a well of anxiety about how the Internet is changing us. He also crystallized one of the most important debates of our time: As we enjoy the Net’s bounties, are we sacrificing our ability to read and think deeply?

Now, Carr expands his argument into the most compelling exploration of the Internet’s intellectual and cultural consequences yet published. As he describes how human thought has been shaped through the centuries by “tools of the mind”—from the alphabet to maps, to the printing press, the clock, and the computer—Carr interweaves a fascinating account of recent discoveries in neuroscience by such pioneers as Michael Merzenich and Eric Kandel. Our brains, the historical and scientific evidence reveals, change in response to our experiences. The technologies we use to find, store, and share information can literally reroute our neural pathways.

Building on the insights of thinkers from Plato to McLuhan, Carr makes a convincing case that every information technology carries an intellectual ethic—a set of assumptions about the nature of knowledge and intelligence. He explains how the printed book served to focus our attention, promoting deep and creative thought. In stark contrast, the Internet encourages the rapid, distracted sampling of small bits of information from many sources. Its ethic is that of the industrialist, an ethic of speed and efficiency, of optimized production and consumption—and now the Net is remaking us in its own image. We are becoming ever more adept at scanning and skimming, but what we are losing is our capacity for concentration, contemplation, and reflection.

Part intellectual history, part popular science, and part cultural criticism, The Shallows sparkles with memorable vignettes—Friedrich Nietzsche wrestling with a typewriter, Sigmund Freud dissecting the brains of sea creatures, Nathaniel Hawthorne contemplating the thunderous approach of a steam locomotive—even as it plumbs profound questions about the state of our modern psyche. This is a book that will forever alter the way we think about media and our minds. ... Read more

Reviews

Death by a thousand distracting cuts, June 8, 2010
In this short but informative, thought-provoking book, Nicholas Carr presents an argument I've long felt to be true on a humanist level, but supports it with considerable scientific research. In fact, he speaks as a longtime computer enthusiast, one who's come to question what he once wholeheartedly embraced ... and even now, he takes care to distinguish between the beneficial & detrimental aspects of the Internet.

The argument in question?

- Greater access to knowledge is not the same as greater knowledge.

- An ever-increasing plethora of facts & data is not the same as wisdom.

- Breadth of knowledge is not the same as depth of knowledge.

- Multitasking is not the same as complexity.

The studies that Carr presents are troubling, to say the least. From what has been gleaned to date, it's clear that the brain retains a certain amount of plasticity throughout life -- that is, it can be reshaped, and the way that we think can be reshaped, for good or for ill. Thus, if the brain is trained to respond to & take pleasure in the faster pace of the digital world, it is reshaped to favor that approach to experiencing the world as a whole. More, it comes to crave that experience, as the body increasingly craves more of anything it's trained to respond to pleasurably & positively. The more you use a drug, the more you need to sustain even the basic rush.

And where does that leave the mind shaped by deep reading? The mind that immerses itself in the universe of a book, rather than simply looking for a few key phrases & paragraphs? The mind that develops through slow, quiet contemplation, mulling over ideas in their entirety, and growing as a result? The mature mind that ponders possibilities & consequences, rather than simply going with the bright, dazzling, digital flow?

Nowhere, it seems.

Carr makes it clear that the digital world, like any other technology that undeniably makes parts of life so much easier, is here to stay. All the more reason, then, to approach it warily, suspiciously, and limit its use whenever possible, since it is so ubiquitous. "Yes, but," many will say, "everything is moving so fast that we've got to adapt to it, keep up with it!" Not unlike the Red Queen commenting that it takes all of one's energy & speed to simply remain in one place while running. But what sort of life is that? How much depth does it really have?

Because some aspects of life -- often the most meaningful & rewarding aspects -- require time & depth. Yet the digital world constantly makes us break it into discrete, interchangeable bits that hurtle us forward so rapidly & inexorably that we simply don't have time to stop & think. And before we know it, we're unwilling & even unable to think. Not in any way that allows true self-awareness in any real context.

Emerson once said (as aptly quoted by Carr), "Things are in the saddle / And ride mankind." The danger is that we'll not only willingly, even eagerly, wear those saddles, but that we'll come to desire them & buckle them on ever more tightly, until we feel naked without them. And we'll gladly pay anything to keep them there, even as we lose the capacity to wonder why we ever put them on in the first place.

Most highly recommended!

A work which merits deep reading, June 6, 2010
The Internet has made the information- universes of all of us much larger. At the same time it has altered the way we read, and the way we pay attention. The major thesis of this work is that it has made us shallower creatures. In Carr's words," We want to be interrupted, because each interruption brings us a valuable piece of information... And so we ask the Internet to keep interrupting us, in ever more and different ways. We willingly accept the loss of concentration and focus, the division of our attention and the fragmentation of our thoughts, in return for the wealth of compelling or at least diverting information we receive. Tuning out is not an option many of us would consider. (p. 133-4)" This means in effect that our powers of concentration and contemplation, if not diminished all at once, are nonetheless put less to use. It means that we do not really take in much of what we read and see, but rather let it pass by as something new comes to attract and distract us. It too means according to Carr transformations in actual brain- structure. And he uses the results of cognitive brain studies to point out how excessive use of the Internet reshapes our brain- structure.

Carr argues that with the advent of reading humanity developed a different kind of neural structure. Reading which was an extension of story- telling enabled us to begin to speak to ourselves, to contemplate reality in deeper ways. The bookman mind is a deeper mind than the electronic - mind , despite MacLuhan's contrary take.

Still one might argue that we need not be the slaves of the predominant technology. It all depends upon the will, decision, determination of the individual. The horde may decide to operate in a certain way, but one has the power to shut the machine off. Or one has the power to turn away from the Net, and focus only on one text one wants to work with. Many of us are engaged in making these decisions all the time.
Still I would say that my own experience substantiates Carr's main thesis. I have wasted in the past few years far too much time, jumping from one thing to another.
Nonetheless there is no turning back from the Revolution which Carr considers to be certainly the greatest since the introduction of the Printing press, and perhaps greatest since the introduction of the Alphabet and the Number System.

Perhaps what is truly required is a 'proper mix of both ways of 'reading and seeing' of both 'modes of being' i.e. the short- term internet attention mode, and the longer book- concentration mode. And this as I sense that when many begin to feel an exhaustion from the jumping around, come to understand it does not really help them in pursuit of their main goal, there will be some reaction in the other direction.

An important read for our current net-obsessed age, June 1, 2010
I familiarized myself with the work of Mr. Carr after I read his Does IT Matter? article for one of my graduate business classes. Since 2007, I am a regular reader of his blog, and I eagerly anticipated his previous book The Big Switch.

His latest effort is another worthwhile read with important insights into what is happening to our minds in the age of the Internet. I, myself, have struggled with the same ideas and issues described in The Shallows and found it very relevant. The book provides great examples and scientific explanations about memory, brain plasticity, and recent advances in cognitive science. Maybe some of the examples and topics from the book would be familiar to followers of his blog, but now they are laid out in such a way, that larger implication emerge from the text.

Do the costs (of the Net) really outweigh the benefits?, June 3, 2010
Rich with historical anecdotes and replete with scientific surveys and evidence, "The Shallows" is a book that demands your respect whether you are comfortable giving it or not. And many people won't be. After all, Carr is a bit of a skunk at the cyber-garden party. I mean, how dare he suggest that all is not wine and roses with our glorious new world of instantaneous connectivity, abundant information flows, and cheap (often free) media content! Obviously, most of us want to believe that all adds up to a more well-rounded worldview and greater wisdom about the world around us. Carr is skeptical of those claims and "The Shallows" is his latest effort to poke a hole in the cyber-utopian claims that sometimes pervade discussions about Internet. Although, ultimately, he doesn't quite convinced me that "The Web is a technology of forgetfulness," he has made a powerful case that its effects may not be as salubrious as many of us have assumed.

But the ultimate question is: Do the costs really outweigh the benefits? Is it the case that these technologies "turn numb the most intimate, the most human, of our natural capacities -- those for reason, perception, memory, emotion"? I think that goes a bit too far, however. Importantly, Carr doesn't really ever answer the crucial question here: Were we really better off in the decades prior to the rise of the Net? Did we really read more and engage in the more contemplative deep-reading and thinking he Carr fears we are losing because of the Net? Count me among those who think that -- whatever most of us are doing in front our our computers most nights, and no matter how distracting it is -- it has to be better than much of the crap we wasted our spare time on in the past!

It would have also been nice to have seen Carr offer up some personal suggestions for how we each might better manage cognitive overload, which can be a real problem. In a brief "digression" chapter entitled "On the Writing of This Book," Carr does mention some of the steps he took personally to make sure he could complete "The Shallows" without being driven to distraction by the Web and digital technologies. But he doesn't dwell on that much, which is a shame. A bit of a self-help can go a long way toward alleviating the worst forms of cognitive overload, although it will continue to be a struggle for many of us.

Despite the reservations I've raised here, Nick Carr's "The Shallows" is beautifully written and is my early favorite for the most important info-tech book of the year. It will be required reading in this field for many years to come. [You can find my complete review of Carr's "The Shallows" over at the Technology Liberation Front blog.]

Only the very shallow could give this book a low rating, June 9, 2010
If you truly want to know how technology (the Web in particular) is literally altering the functionality of our brains, buy this book. If not, go back to skimming webpages and pretend like nothing is happening.

Some great quotes from the book (if you still have the ability to concentrate long enough to comprehend them):

"Imagine filling a bathtub with a thimble; that's the challenge involved in transferring information from working memory into long-term memory. By regulating the velocity and intensity of information flow, media exert a strong influence on this process. When we read a book, the information faucet provides a steady drip, which we can control by the pace of our reading. Through our single-minded concentration on the text, we can transfer all or most of the information, thimbleful by thimbleful, into long-term memory and forge the rich associations essential to the creation of schemas. With the Net, we face many information faucets, all going full blast. Our little thimble overflows as we rush from one faucet to the next. We're able to transfer only a small portion of the information to long-term memory, and what we do transfer is a jumble of drops from different faucets, not a continuous, coherent stream from one source."- The Shallows (page 125)

"We can assume that the neural circuits devoted to scanning, skimming, and multitasking are expanding and strengthening while those used for reading and thinking deeply, with sustained concentration, are weakening or eroding. In 2009, researchers from Stanford University found signs that this shift may already be well underway. They gave a battery of cognitive tests to a group of heavy media multitaskers as well as a group of relatively light multitaskers. They found that heavy multitaskers were much more easily distracted by irrelevant environmental stimuli," had significantly less control over the contents of their working memory, and we in general much less able to maintain their concentration on a particular task. Whereas the infrequent multitaskers exhibited relatively strong "top-down attentional control," the habitual multitaskers showed "a greater tendency for bottom-up attentional control, " suggesting that "they are sacrificing performance on the primary task to let in other sources of information." Intensive multitaskers are suckers for irrelevancy," commented Clifford Nass, the Stanford professor who led the research. "Everything distracts them."- The Shallows (page 142)

"Considering how much easier it is to search digital text than printed text, the common assumption has been that making journals available on the net would significantly broaden the scope of scholarly research, leading to a much more diverse set of citations. But that's not at all what Evans [Sociologist of the University of Chicago] discovered. As more journals moved online, scholars actually cited fewer articles that they had before. And as old issues of printed journals were digitized and uploaded to the Web, scholars cited more recent articles with increasing frequency. A broadening of available information led as Evans described it to a "narrowing of science and scholarship." In explaining the counter intuitive findings in a 2008 `Science' article, Evans noted that automated information-filtering tools, such as search engines, tend to serve as amplifiers of popularity, quickly establishing and then continually reinforcing a consensus about what information is important and what isn't. "The ease of following hyperlinks, moreover, leads online researchers to "bypass many of the marginally related articles that print researchers" would routinely skim as they flip through the pages of a journal or book. The quicker that scholars are able to "find prevailing opinion," wrote Evans, the more likely they are "to follow it, leading to more citations referencing fewer articles." Though much less efficient than searching the Web, old-fashioned library research probably served to widen scholars horizons: "By drawing researchers through unrelated articles, print browsing and perusal may have facilitated broader comparisons and led researchers into the past." - The Shallows (page 217)

"Spending time in the park, the researchers found, "significantly improved" people's performance on the cognitive tests, indicating a substantial increase in attentiveness. Walking in the city, by contrast, led to no improvement in test results."- The Shallows (page 219)

"In sum," concluded the researches, "simple and brief interactions with nature can produce marked increases in cognitive control." Spending time in the natural world seems to be of "vital importance" to "effective cognitive functioning."- The Shallows (page 220)

Missed Opportunity, July 2, 2010
The Shallows is an expansion of Carr's 2007 article in The Atlantic, "Is Google Making Us Stupid?" The question with a book of this derivation is always: does it achieve more than the article did, or is it just a puffed up excuse to gain from the notoriety of the original piece, now freely available on the Internet? To that question, I answer that it is indeed more than the original piece. It provides much greater depth of detail for the brain science research that centrally informs the book, and he also expands on the nature and history of deep reading, in a way that I (someone who is doing research in this field) think is quite deft and responsible. In a sense, the earlier magazine article was really a book masquerading as a magazine article, whereas these days most books are magazine articles masquerading as books.

That said, The Shallows is somewhat less than the original Atlantic article in that Carr, as he approaches the end, falls into the most predictable sort of romantic nostalgia. We're becoming machines. The machines are taking our souls away. The Internet is compromising our integrity as humans. Machines are colonizing our minds. Soon they will be more interesting than we are, just like Hal in 2001: A Space Odyssey. I've heard this all before! Certainly, a man as clever and as hard-working as Nicholas Carr could have thought a little harder.

(An aside: Perhaps he's proving his point that we've already lost our ability to think deeply. Or perhaps he's DISproving his point that going to country--Carr had to "get away from it all" to write this book--helps us to be contemplative whereas cities only distract us.)

We need people who care about the things books have done for us and continue to do for us who can *also* think beyond the nineteenth century. We can't leave this to the machine people. So, I end up in the middle on this book: 3 stars. The first 80% is good but it fails to deliver a "where we go from here..." Let the good parts inspire the rest of us to take up where Carr has left off.

Beautifully written reminder that each medium has its tradeoffs, June 21, 2010
When I first came across this book I noticed that a lot of my friends on social media were expressing disgust or boredom with the thesis of "Is the Internet frying our brain?" After all, who but a curmudgeon would claim that the most vital and transformative technology of our time might have a dark side? Especially at a time when leading edge educators are working furiously to bring their field up to date by incorporating the best of the latest technology in a way that improves education. Against this background Carr's book seems reminiscent of those poor backward folks who opposed the printing press. As the brilliant and funny curmudgeon Neil Postman once said about himself, Carr is indeed playing the role of the Luddite in some ways. Still, neither Postman nor Carr were trying to dismantle the Internet or just shriek an alarm with their work. They are trying to help us understand something important. With that in mind, let's take a more careful look at this book.

The Shallows is a thoroughly and broadly researched and beautifully written polemic which I found to represent two different things. First, it is a media analysis and culture critique. Second it is a pessimistic theory about the overall effect of web media on our thinking ability over time.

The first aspect will be a delight for those interested in the evolution of human cognition, those fascinated with media effects per se, the traditionally minded book scholars, and assorted geezers. It is a very satisfying cultural media critique very much in the spirit of Marshall Macluhan and Neil Postman even though it lacks Macluhan's showmanship or Postman's remarkable ever-present humor. It was this aspect made the book a worthwhile reminder for me, introduced me to some fascinating recent cognitive science work supporting the view that different media encourage different ways of thinking, and helped tie together a number of broad ideas for me regarding the evolution of human cognition and the influence of the tools we use.

The second aspect, for the more technically psychologically minded, and the more alarmist and pessimistic part, is a clever argument for competing and mutually destructive habits of attention allocation: (1) the nimble web browsing mind that constantly reserves attention and working memory for making navigational decisions and is exposed to massive amounts of information, and (2) the sustained attention ability that we learn with great effort over time for the purpose of reading and reflective thinking.

The second aspect is the one that most of the articles and marketing have been pushing, a thesis I'll call "Help! The Internet is Frying My Brain!"

Carr argues that the nimble web mind better exploits our more natural "bottom-up" or stimulus driven attention mechanisms, which is why we find it so powerful. He also argues that the undistracted reflective mind is far less natural but has unique advantages for human cognition. So it is worth retaining, he argues, _and_ we need to keep working deliberately at it in order to retain it. That alone would be an important point. Thus far, I think the attention argument is completely consistent with the media critique, and supports it. None of this so far says that our brain is being fried by the Internet.

Now comes the trickier part, and the part of Carr's thesis that to me is most controversial, the two ways of using attention may not only compete but may actually be mutually destructive. Carr offers his own experience and that of several other serious book readers to show that they are having increasing trouble reading for prolonged periods. Carr says that there is neuroscience data showing that this may be the result of web reading rather than just advancing age or other less ominous explanations.

This "fried brain" thesis is the part that is either revolutionary, or becomes the fatal flaw in The Shallows, depending on whether or not it is true. So is it true? Does Carr persuade us that not only are we thinking differently with different media (a very strong case I think) but that the Internet is frying our brains?

Today we remember the iconic wise curmudgeon, Socrates, only through his students. That's because old Soc didn't believe in writing. It seems he was a great proponent of contemplative thought and taught that contemplation depends heavily on memory. He thought it would seriously hurt people's memory to rely too much on writing things down. His criticism seems perverse today, even as we remember Soc fondly for his deep reflection and his provocative teaching methods. That's the historical role into which Nicholas Carr has cast himself, the media critic who invokes wisdom and reflection and plays them against seemingly unstoppable cultural trends towards greater convenience, efficiency, and information distribution.

Carr is the guy who wants to warn us about the hazards of writing on our memory. About the damage that the printing press will do to culture. About how TV will change us for the worse. And now about how the Internet will shift our values, instill bad habits, hurt our reading and thinking skills, and even destroy our powers of sustained concentration.

Socrates wasn't entirely wrong even though he bucked a trend that in retrospect was downright silly to oppose. People who don't specifically practice remembering things and instead devote everything to writing do find that they have weaker memories. That's the reason for all those memory courses, the best of which essentially just teach the same methods socrates would have used. The widespread distribution of news did have negative consequences in terms of reinforcing bias and propaganda on a massive scale.

There are some adverse consequences of all the TV watching we do. However none of these things has had the dire consequences that culture critics predicted, we have adapted in turn in some way to each of them, more or less successfully.

So Carr isn't entirely wrong about the tradeoffs involved in using modern technologies. He is not a "Luddite" and he does make a number of valid points.

Carr is not telling us to dismantle the Internet. He fully recognizes the value of technology. He is rather playing Socrates to the modern students. Most people, desperately trying to keep up with the amazing new technologies and learn new ways of getting better information with them will ignore Carr's message pretty much out of hand. "Carr is the only one affected negatively by the Internet, the rest of us are thriving."

Those folks who ignore culture critics out of hand are taking for granted the skills and expertise that many people have cultivated through sheer effort using sustained concentration. They are buying into the attractive fashionable modern viewpoint that just being exposed to a lot of information via technology will make you smart. The majority of people, the ones who go along with that implicit confusion of information and personal knowledge, will indeed lose some of the things we take for granted today. I think Carr is right about that, and that is the most profound message in this book. LISTEN TO IT. Even if you think, with good reason, that it is silly to imagine that using search engines and hyperlinks will hurt your concentration.

Still, the message that the Internet will make us stupid isn't quite right. Writing didn't entirely destroy our memory, it just shifted the habits we need to cultivate to preserve it. It seems like the wisest among us will recognize the value that culture critics like Carr have always had, they will appreciate the detail and care that good media critics like Carr put into their warnings, and they will remember the real tradeoffs between different kinds of media and take responsibility for the cultivation of their own minds.

Just as wise modern students still practice the methods used by Socrates, they will still learn to read and think deeply using books or the electronic equivalent, the wisest will still turn off the TV and other distractions when sustained concentration is called for, and they will understand the difference between various conditions and different kinds of media in general and will use each to its best advantage.

So long as we aren't stupid enough to stop cultivating our individual minds regardless of technology changes, media itself will not make us stupid. Listen to Carr's message, learn it, and then apply it to your use of technology. It's easy to dismiss the claim that the Internet will somehow fry your brain. It's another matter entirely to dismiss the value of cultivating your mind through personal reflection.

Related background reading:

On the evolution of cognition and symbolic thought (and secondarily, the role of reading):
A Mind So Rare: The Evolution of Human Consciousness
The Symbolic Species: The Co-Evolution of Language and the Brain

On reading and the brain:
Reading in the Brain: The Science and Evolution of a Human Invention
Proust and the Squid: The Story and Science of the Reading Brain

On the role of tools in cognition:
Adaptive Thinking: Rationality in the Real World (Evolution and Cognition Series)

On the role of media technology in culture:
Understanding Media: The Extensions of Man
Technopoly: The Surrender of Culture to Technology

On the trend to rising IQ scores in modern times:
What Is Intelligence?: Beyond the Flynn Effect

On the practical limitations of human working memory:
Your Brain at Work: Strategies for Overcoming Distraction, Regaining Focus, and Working Smarter All Day Long
The Overflowing Brain: Information Overload and the Limits of Working Memory

Outstanding - Shallow Reviewers Prove the Point, June 20, 2010
A book whose thesis is deep reading and reflective thought prompts this review by Chance York:

"I'm 50 pages into this book and it is, by far, the WORST book I've ever read."

That someone wrote that review after reading only 50 pages of a book about book reading almost made me fall out of my chair. Chalk one up for Nick Carr and The Shallows as you this reviewer couldn't have made his point any better. As an aside, to claim this extremely well written book is the "WORST", in upper case no less, book Chance has ever read (perhaps he should say "partially read") is obvious hyperbole.

Carr's argument, whether you agree with it or not, deserves serious consideration. The book is interesting and very well written. It goes deep and if you go deep with it, you will be the better off for it. I'm still struggling with what I think about all this, but The Shallows led me into a lot of careful thought about the topic. That's the whole point after all.

Important topic, mostly well written, June 28, 2010
This is an extension of Carr's influential article "Is Google making us stupid?", and is in many ways a fascinating look at the possibility that the medium of the internet changes our ability to process information deeply. Carr is at his absolute best when he brings up the issue, pointing out what is at stake and drawing our intuitions out.

Word for word, this is not as interesting or well-written as his original article. In many places it tends to be stretched a bit thin -- which seems odd for a book on this topic. For example, since he is essentially expanding on an originally limited argument, he feels obliged to include a lot of well-worn history to expand the scope of media. We really don't need to know about Sumerian cuneiform or wax tablets or Greek philosophers (beyond the very obvious point that there is a history of media) for the argument he's making, since they don't fundamentally affect his argument.

Another weak point about the book is the writing on the brain and neuroplasticity. Since Carr is not a scientist himself, he doesn't have the background to write about this in a really authoritative way. What he has done is to work mainly off secondary (and tertiary) sources; basically taking for granted what other people have said. This shows through in a few areas where he relies too heavily on books such as Doidge's "The Brain that Changes Itself", already a pretty diluted look at neuroscience written by a psychoanalyst. If you want to know how reading and writing have changed the organization of the brain, there is a much better book out there called "Reading and the Brain" by Stanislas Dehaene. (a little digression here -- reading/writing have changed our perceptual mechanisms in the brain, while the internet is probably changing something like attentional control and executive function, so there are some important caveats to the phrase that "the medium is the message")

However, the chapter on memory was excellent, and brought me back into his argument. He makes the very important point (and one that won't be as obvious to most readers) that memory doesn't function like a hard drive; that instead it forms a central part of the way that we think. So there is a fundamental error in trying to "offload" our memory onto the web -- by not internalizing information, and instead thinking that we can just look at it later -- and one that we are probably not aware of.

Overall, I can't help but thinking that, despite his argument, it's a better world with the internet. Carr points out that the strategy that he used in writing the book was to rely on the best of both systems -- the fast internet for preliminary thinking and gathering sources, and quiet contemplation away from the internet to gather his thoughts and write the book. To have that option is something that is useful to be aware of.

The Shallows, June 23, 2010
The Shallows expands on the evolutionary notion that the digital age is, for all its advantages and benefits, contributing to a dumbing-down of the generations. The premise behind this idea is that rapid access to facts and new information may actually reduce the depth at which people consider ideas, develop arguments, construct debate, perform analytics, create concepts and engage in learning. The distractive forces of a rapid fire internet stream of data are real according to Carr and the neuro-references he cites.

One of the major challenges is distraction and the risk of training our brains to pay attention to "crap" according to neuroscientists. In addition, the author has concerns that these distractions can undermine empathy, compassion and emotion as we lose track of reality and context. Another concern is that we take on thinking as a more superficial act, and we lose touch with challenging ideas and perhaps innovation as we rely more on conventional lines of thought. This general theme has been bubbling in education circles.

While this points to a rather negative and damning view of intellectual life in the internet age, critics might suggest that digital access and engagement are in fact leading to a new culture of learning, exposure and intellectual life. One could argue the effects, pro and con, of the digital age, including those presented by Carr, as detriments to society. Opponents might argue that these effects are not universal, and in fact, they must be put into balance with the broader exposure afforded to those who have been less educated, less exposed and less engaged in intellectual life.

As with any argument on the origins of stupidity, we have to consider the balance of neurological development, educational practices, individual roles and responsibilities, expectations of society and the power of the human spirit. When we think of mindlessness or mindfulness, we are talking about knowledge and knowledge management. There is more to the equation than simply sourcing data and organizing information. In fact, the whole KM discipline speaks to the acquisition arrangement and application of knowledge, not simply searching for data. This is where "deeper smarts" have a major role.

The bigger story here may be how we guide our people to consider information, knowledge, data, perspectives and the value of content. Carr speaks to a challenge and a risk. He also opens the door for arguments about a society's value for intelligence, learning and consideration. This work touches on philosophy, neuroscience, learning models and the responsibility of a learned society. This is an especially provoking text for those in education, information technology, business analysis, planned innovation and organization development. It has broad applications for leadership and management.


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Editorial Review

Nudge is about choices-how we make them and how we can make better ones. Authors Richard H. Thaler and Cass R. Sunstein offer a new perspective on preventing the countless mistakes we make- including ill-advised personal investments, consumption of unhealthy foods, neglect of our natural resources, and other bad decisions. Citing decades of cutting-edge behavioral science research, they demonstrate that sensible "choice architecture"can successfully nudge people towards the best decisions without restricting their freedom of choice. S straightforward, informative, and entertaining, this is a must-read for anyone with interest in our individual and collective well-being. ... Read more

Reviews

The elephant in the room.
Richard H. Thaler and Cass R. Sunstein are both professors at the University of Chicago and where the Chicago school was once famous for the Milton Friedman doctrine of free markets (look where they've got us today!) Thaler and now his Law professor friend Cass Sunstein have swung the pendulum the other way.

Here in Nudge, they argue that totally free markets can lead to disasters precisely because human individuals are not actually very good decision-makers. As Behavioural Economists (Kahneman & Tversky Judgment under Uncertainty: Heuristics and Biases- who credited Thaler as being a key inspiration - and Dan Ariely, whose Predictably Irrational: The Hidden Forces That Shape Our Decisions has become a best seller) argue, we are riddled with little psychological tics in our decision-making processes. We buy things, then suffer remorse. We get confused by choices and often make no choice at all.

But where Ariely keeps his discourse in the world of the day to day, Thaler and Sunstein develop an argument that is political - and is bound to cause heated debate. What they argue is that, in the face of our decision-making weaknesses, Governments and Businesses can help "nudge" us in the right direction. The elephant in the room can be benign.

They call their viewpoint `libertarian paternalism' and what they argue is that it would be a good thing for some gentle nudging of the citizenry in the right direction. As Thaler said recently in the New York Times: "In light of human limitations, Cass Sunstein and I argue for policies that we call libertarian paternalism. Although the phrase sounds like an oxymoron, we contend that it is often possible to design policies, in both the public and private sector, that make people better off -- as judged by themselves -- without coercion. We oppose bans; instead, we favor nudges."

How does a Government do this without imposing laws and edicts. A primary argument is that defaults can be set that counter the tendency by humans to procrastinate or make no decision. One example is the Save More Tomorrow Plan which Thaler developed back in 1996 as an employer sponsored retirement plan for employees. Instead of presenting the details and asking employees to consciously sign-up to increase their savings each time they got a pay rise, the plan presented the details and asked employees to basically check the box if they wished in future to automatically increase their savings as their pay went up. To pre-commit. Such schemes have proved very successful, yet they offer the same free choice, though with a different default.

As Thaler argues: "Since it is often impossible for private and public institutions to avoid picking some option as the default, why not pick one that is helpful?"

Another form of nudge might be the act of disclosure. Thaler & Sunstein argue, for example that credit card companies should issue annual statements that tell us how much we've spent this year on late fees and interest. Again: we have the complete freedom to use cards as we want, but the additional information may help us reframe our own spending strategies. Or how about stickers on new cars that show how much gasoline each vehicle would burn over the next 5 years under typical usage. Hold that Hummer.

These are examples of what the authors call helpful "choice architecture." Nice phrase. The architecture puts our options on more clear display.

I must say, I like the thinking here, and it gives credence to agent-based simulation modelling I've carried out whereby small changes can lead to big effects.

But this volume is about more than modelling and mere theory. One cannot help but think that the book has been timed to coincide with the meltdown of the present economy. The free market, the totally free market, the authors implicitly argue, needs quite a nudge itself. Rather than seeking highly regulated solutions, the better response might simply be a series of tweaks to the choice architecture that influences our spending, saving, health care and borrowing patterns.

The authors present a clear argument and no doubt it will cause heated and lively debate. This book has landed like a rock, right into the centre of the current and somewhat stagnant economic pond. It will definitely cause ripples. Well worth reading.

Important for medical decisions as well
"Buy on apples, sell on cheese" is an old proverb among wine merchants. Taking a bite of an apple before tasting wine makes it easier to detect flaws in the wine, and the buyer who does so will not as easily make the mistake of paying more than the wine is worth. Cheese, on the other hand, pairs well with wine and enhances its flavor, so a seller who offers cheese may command a higher price for the wine (and may even deserve it, if the wine is intended to be drunk with cheese).

The proverb captures important psychological nuances of choice. The same product - a bottle of wine or a risky medical procedure - may be perceived differently depending on its context, and it is often possible to arrange the context to influence a choice while still maintaining the decision maker's autonomy.

The practice of structuring choices is called "choice architecture" in a brilliant and important new book, Nudge, by University of Chicago Distinguished Professors Richard Thaler (Business) and Cass Sunstein (Law). Nudge lays out the groundwork for the science of choice architecture in investing, insurance, health care delivery, and other areas, and argues for a "libertarian paternalism" in which choices are structured to make it more likely that a decision maker will select what is considered the most beneficial option, without impairing the ability to decision makers to select other options. For example, making enrollment in 401(k) plans automatic for new employees, with a form for opting out, is likely to result in greater retirement savings than an opt-in system, without limiting anyone's freedom to choose.

Thaler and Sunstein apply the principles of choice architecture to a few problems in health care (How could Medicare part D be improved? How can organ donation rates be increased? Why shouldn't patients be allowed to waive their right to sue for medical negligence in return for cheaper health care?) But the concepts in the book go beyond their specific examples and could prove very useful to practicing clinicians, who, they note, are often in the position of being choice architects for their patients.

Their principles of choice architecture (paraphrased by me and focused on physicians helping patients make decisions) are:

* Make sure incentives are aligned with desired outcomes
* Help patients map outcomes of different alternatives into formats they can understand (a major focus of Medical Decision Making as well)
* Arrange default options to favor better health. Pediatricians have done a good job of making vaccination a default option.
* Provide timely and relevant feedback about choices and outcomes. A patient seeking to lose weight needs to experience feedback in the form of measurable progress soon enough that they are not discouraged.
* Expect error and develop systems to prevent, detect, and minimize it. For example, pill cases and inhalers with dosage counters are simple and valuable ways to reduce the frequent errors people make in remembering medication. Psychological research provides direction as to what kinds of errors are to be expected when people are making decisions.
* Structure complex choices to reduce the difficulty of making good decisions. In many ways, that's what medical decision making -- and Medical Decision Making -- is about.

I highly recommend Nudge. It's a great read, and has the potential to change the way you think about clinical practice and medical decisions.

Economics as though real humans mattered
Nudge's purpose is to use our understanding of Man As He Is to build better policies. Rather than assume a perfectly rational human who can parse long, complicated documents with his mighty, limitless brain, Man As He Is sometimes skims and can be deceived by cleverly worded contracts. Man As He Is is often aware of his own limitations: he'll flush his cigarettes down the toilet to prevent his future self from doing what his present self knows to be harmful; he'll promise to start exercising tomorrow; and he'll curse himself for procrastinating. Perfectly Rational Man -- whom Thaler and Sunstein call an "Econ," to be contrasted with a "Human" -- would never have these problems. Econs sit down with (notional) pencil and paper and calmly work out the costs and benefits of all available actions, then take the action that maximizes their present and future happiness subject to a discount rate (future happiness is worth less than the same quantity of present happiness). They don't have an internal procrastinator at war with a rational planner, nor do they ever regret on Sunday morning what they did on Saturday night.

Nudge is for Humans, not Econs. Nudge realizes, for instance, that making 401(k)s opt-out rather than opt-in, and setting a reasonable default investment plan, will lead lots more people to save money for retirement. And now that they've been enrolled, very few people will opt out. This is what Thaler and Sunstein call "libertarian paternalism": giving people a gentle push in the direction of their own best interests (the "paternalism" part), but never taking away choices (the "libertarian" part). People can quit at any time; it's only the default that has changed.

Your 401(k)'s default investment plan is part of what Thaler and Sunstein call "choice architecture." As a 401(k) administrator, I can guide your choices in any number of ways. I can choose opt-in or opt-out; if I choose opt-out, I have to choose a default plan, whereas if I choose opt-in, I have to decide how much prodding to give you. The point is that choice is inevitable. There's no way to avoid structuring the options available to people, so the right thing to do is to pick the best default. Given this realization, most of Nudge will be entirely uncontroversial.

Thaler and Sunstein digest a mountain of psychological research and reassemble it into a convincing story about how to build policies that correct for human failings. Humans can be expected to make the right decision when faced with a routine, concrete problem -- buying food at the grocery store, say -- but all bets are off when we're asked to evaluate a complicated, large-scale problem like the impact of our air-conditioner usage on global climate change. Thaler and Sunstein want to give the market itself a nudge here. They wouldn't insist that we buy only low-power appliances. Instead, they want our appliances to give us simple, immediate feedback on our energy usage: thermometers that reveal moment-to-moment energy costs, say, and EPA fuel-economy infographics that use easy-to-understand metrics like "dollars per year."

Econs may be able to consume any information thrown at them and correctly render a judgment from what they read; Humans have finite attention spans and would rather spend time with their families than pore over fuel-economy tables. If we want Humans to make the best choices, we have to structure their choice environment to make this possible. Nudge is Thaler and Sunstein's brilliant contribution toward this goal.

Nudge for goodness sake
Nobody forced my neighbor to buy that expensive plasma TV. After reading Nudge now he knows why he spent so much more money than he intended. It seemed like such a bargain, standing right next to a much more expensive set in the store display. In Thaler and Sunstein's terms, the store nudged him to buy that TV. They organized the choice set in a way that gently moved him towards what they want him to do. They got him to buy a pricey TV by taking advantage of the principle of contrast. Such psychological biases have been exploited since the beginning of human commerce to sell us things we don't need. This book makes a compelling argument that the same psychological biases can be used to get us what we really want.

After reading Nudge it is easy to understand how small things can make a big difference. For instance, most people I know would like to save more money; most of them don't. Nudge convincingly argues that people can, and should be helped to do that. Very few of us can commit to saving more money today, but most of us can commit today to save more money tomorrow. This human tendency can be used to help people save, and Nudge describes how several companies have already implemented such programs successfully by nudging employees to committing in advance to save part of a future salary increase.

By relying on a large body of work in Psychology and Behavioral Economics, Thaler and Sunstein elegantly argue that people have predictable, systematic biases and that this knowledge can be put to work to help all of us.

Their basic thesis is simple and brilliant: First, how options are presented matters. There is no neutral way to present options. If you present the salads first in a buffet, people will eat more healthy food than if you put salads at the end. Second, don't reduce choice, but organize the options so that people will be more likely to end up with what they themselves would prefer. This is as true for the salad bar as it is for health care.

This amazing book is useful for individuals and policy makers. Policy makers should be interested because such "choice architecture" is strictly non-partisan. Individuals should be interested because this book will nudge them to improve their life their way.
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Editorial Review

In his landmark bestseller The Tipping Point, Malcolm Gladwell redefined how we understand the world around us. Now, in Blink, he revolutionizes the way we understand the world within. Blink is a book about how we think without thinking, about choices that seem to be made in an instant-in the blink of an eye-that actually aren't as simple as they seem. Why are some people brilliant decision makers, while others are consistently inept? Why do some people follow their instincts and win, while others end up stumbling into error? How do our brains really work-in the office, in the classroom, in the kitchen, and in the bedroom? And why are the best decisions often those that are impossible to explain to others?In Blink we meet the psychologist who has learned to predict whether a marriage will last, based on a few minutes of observing a couple; the tennis coach who knows when a player will double-fault before the racket even makes contact with the ball; the antiquities experts who recognize a fake at a glance. Here, too, are great failures of "blink": the election of Warren Harding; "New Coke"; and the shooting of Amadou Diallo by police. Blink reveals that great decision makers aren't those who process the most information or spend the most time deliberating, but those who have perfected the art of "thin-slicing"-filtering the very few factors that matter from an overwhelming number of variables. ... Read more

Reviews

Don't make a snap judgement buying this book, February 24, 2005
Well, as a huge fan of Gladwell's last book, The Tipping Point, I was excited last week to finally get my hands on his new effort: Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking. This time around Gladwell's basic thesis is that often snap judgements (what he calls "thin slicing") can be more accurate than well researched, careful analysis. Gladwell uses many examples (most are interesting) to demonstrate this behavior such as determining when art is faked, sizing up car buyers, picking presidential candidates and determining the characteristics of a person by observing their living space. This has always been Gladwell's talent: taking just-under-the-radar topics and bringing them into the public's view through great journalism and storytelling.

Gladwell is also careful to examine the flipside of this phenomenon: the times when "thin slicing" misleads us or gives us the wrong results. For instance, he presents examples where the mind works based on biases that don't necessarily enter the realm of conscious thought, but are nevertheless there (age, race, height, and so on).

It's a great topic and Gladwell sets it up with some wonderful examples, but then the book begins to have problems. First, the book is a little too anecdotal. Anyone who has ever had a 200-level psych class knows that what looks like cause and effect may be accounted for by an independent variable that wasn't considered (e.g., concluding cancer rates are higher in some area of the country because of pollution, when in fact the area has higher smoking rates as well). Given this, I found that too often conclusions are made on basic handwaving, or that important aspects of studies are not mentioned. For instance, Gladwell describes a study were observers are asked to determine certain characteristics (such as truthfulness, consciensciousness, etc.) of students by observing their dorm rooms; but, never does he mention how exactly one would determine these characteristics of individuals in a scientific manner for comparison. Such omissions leave the reader a little less than convinced.

Nevertheless, even with this flaw the first third of the book supports the thesis and makes for the usual entertaining reading; but things derail from there. The examples start to seem more peripheral: a rogue commander beating the conventional forces in a war game exercise, an artist known as Kenna who apparently should have made it big but didn't (why this example is interesting I've yet to figure out), and some rehash about coke vs pepsi from one of his older articles.

By the end of the book the whole thing derails into examples that just don't seem appropriate for the topic. Sure a study of why Pepsi always does better than Coke in blind tastes tests is interesting (and you can read his article on this without buying the book on Gladwell's web site), but does a study of "sips" vs "whole-can drinking" - people prefer sweet for sips (Pepsi) - really say something about unconscious rapid cognition?

One of Gladwell's greatest strengths is in recognizing interesting things, and then bringing them into conscious awareness so we actually realize these things are happening (whether it be tipping points or rapid cognition). I think he's partly achieved that in this book, but it doesn't come together the way the Tipping Point does. One gets the idea that this topic may have been better handled in an article rather than a full blown book.

Not an idea - a series of curious New Yorker articles, January 29, 2005
The mistake was too try and get all of these wild animals onto the same boat. The book a series of semi-socio-scientific articles on insight and intuition. It is not a cohesive theory.

The writing is enjoyable - I read the most of it in a single plane flight. Some of the insights provide building blocks for understanding how certain professionals (people who practice a subject or skill for many years) are able to develop an additional sense about things -- gamblers, art curators, policemen. They are essentially seeing something that doesn't register at the conscious-level but provides them a gut-feel about the thing. Actually, I should say that these articles are how this MIGHT be happening - it's more speculation based on the diverse theories of a number of different researchers. Individually the stories and ideas are believable. Unfortuately, Gladwell fumbles in trying take them into some unified theory that is comprehensible let alone cohesive -- at times you wonder "where is he going with this?". Without that thread the indivudal beads get lost and fade into memory as clever ideas...and not much more. Without confidence in the grand idea, the individual pieces begin to feel simply exploratory. It's a shame because there are some remarkable ideas. He's a good documenter of curiousities of research (sort of like a Ken Burns is to historical things) so the storytelling is good enough for entertainment. Another reviewer likened it the addage about Chinese food, tasty but hungry an hour later. I agree. Flawed but still some interesting ideas to puzzle over.

A disappointment, January 14, 2005
I am a great admirer of Malcolm Gladwell's writing, having read him for years in "The New Yorker" and loving "The Tipping Point," his earlier book. But "Blink" is no "Tipping Point."

The idea here is that people often have intuitive first impressions that are more valid and valuable than carefully considered, well-thought-out, researched conclusions. Except when they aren't, because first impressions of individuals, for example, can be clouded by (and Gladwell even discusses this) such matters as attractiveness, gender, race -- and even height (what Gladwell calls the "Warren Harding" error). And how are we to know when our quick-as-a-blink reaction is valid and when it isn't? Well, that's the problem with the book. Ever experienced love-at-first-sight and then realized the person wasn't really everything you thought s/he was...?

This entire book flies in the face of an excellent article Gladwell wrote in 2000 called "The New-Boy Network" [...] about how worthless the typical job interview is (because it relies too much on gut impressions) and how "structured interviews" are the only worthwhile ones (an excerpt from the article: "This interviewing technique is known as "structured interviewing," and in studies by industrial psychologists it has been shown to be the only kind of interviewing that has any success at all in predicting performance in the workplace. In the structured interviews, the format is fairly rigid. Each applicant is treated in precisely the same manner. The questions are scripted. The interviewers are carefully trained, and each applicant is rated on a series of predetermined scales.")

Even examples he uses in this book are not very on-target, such as the Red/Blue military exercise he spends a considerable amount of time discussing. He implies repeatedly that the victory of the Reds was due to thin-slicing and their quick judgments, but by his own description a lot of well-thought-out strategic decisions about communications, etc., really were at the heart of the victory, not intuitive decisions made in the blink of an eye.

On the other site of the intuition vs. analysis coin, a very good read is Michael Lewis's "Moneyball." Central to that book, with applications well beyond its baseball setting, is the realization that the gut reactions of seasoned baseball scouts are often unreliable, being clouded by how a player looks rather than his actual on-field accomplishments. A more analytical approach has helped Oakland make the playoffs repeatedly with a salary a third (now a quarter) that of the Yankees -- and also was at the heart of general manager Theo Epstein's player moves that helped the Red Sox win the World Series.

Gladwell certainly loves the social sciences, and runs all over the landscape discussing various experiments, theories, etc., but it doesn't really come together here like it did in "The Tipping Point," or in many of his articles. My "thin slice" (as Gladwell would say): a disappointment.

This review may contain more information than the book..., September 12, 2005
This book suffers from numerous problems. The first is that while it claims to be about "the power of thinking without thinking," this is only one of three ideas that are discussed. The failure to mention the other ideas in the title might have been acceptable if they were mentioned explicitly in the text, but it is unclear that Gladwell realizes the distinction. The second problem is that the book is made up of six distinct essays, and they have been sloppily edited to produce a book that is simultaneously disjoint and repetitive. Though perhaps the second problem is really just a symptom of the third problem, that Gladwell's style is painfully repetitive to begin with. Gladwell does not simply beat dead horses, he beats the dust into which he has reduced their carcasses. The fourth problem is that towards the end of the book Gladwell goes off on a tangent about "situational autism" that is both poorly motivated and very likely to offend the autistic community. And finally, rather than having an introduction and conclusion that tie the book together, these sections present whole new situations; the conclusion in particular seems largely unrelated to the rest of the book.
The book has four points. First, is that the human mind has an impressive ability to process information at an unconscious level very quickly. For instance, by listening to a brief snippet of a doctor speaking, even if the recording is digitally altered so that all you can hear is the tone, you can very accurately determine whether the doctor has good bedside manner. Similarly, by watching a few seconds of a college professor's lecture, even with the sound turned off, you can make a remarkably accurate determination of whether the professor is a good lecturer.
The second point is that this ability often leads us astray. Our unconscious can be shown to harbor prejudices against blacks, women, and others, and these prejudices are bad for both us and society. And on a less socially relevant note, people consistently prefer the taste of liquor that comes in fancy bottles. The book gives absolutely no advice about how to improve our unconscious's attitudes towards either minorities or conventional packaging of foodstuffs.
Without explicitly mentioning it, the book points out the importance of making decisions based on relevant information, rather than large quantities of irrelevant data. The best example of this is given in the introduction. An apparently ancient Greek statue is analyzed with all sorts of fancy chemistry equipment, and the lab technicians come back and say that the marble is indeed from an ancient Greek quarry and that the surface of the marble has a chemical composition that is usually the result of centuries of weathering. On the other hand, any art historian worth his salt can tell you that the feet of the statue are carved in a style never seen in any other Greek statue. While the information from the chemists seems more concrete (their equipment costs more), the relevant fact here is the style of carving in the feet-the statue is a modern forgery.
Finally, the book talks about ways to improve decision making under intense time pressure, for instance in a military engagement or police shootout. The conclusion, not surprisingly, is that practice making split-second decisions is important. Also, if you can slow down the pace of the engagement in order to allow yourself more time, you should do so, but if slowing down gives your opponents a greater advantage, you shouldn't.
If you have made it through this review, there is certainly no need to read the book. Every idea Gladwell had has been summarized and clarified here. Which should really make you wonder how he stretched the book past 20 pages, let alone 200!

Blink stinks..., March 23, 2005
I've never seen a more transparent effort to cash in. This is a (really) dumbed down psych lite book about nothing. At times, Gladwell's effort to make a strong point in confusing (I suspect there is no point). At other times, he provides mini-overviews of the examples discussed in the book in case we couldn't remember them...There is nothing interesting and nothing to gain from Gladwell's flimsy theory about "thinking without thinking." If you're interested in the thesis "the power of thinking without thinking is so strong unless it's a situation where regular thinking is required," buy the book. Because that's all there is to it.

I've reached my "tipping point" over Blink., April 12, 2005
One anecdotal story after another with a weak conclusion (which was yet another anecdotal story) attempting to tie it all up left me flat. Here's my summary: All you need to know is "Don't judge a book by its cover." well... unless you're an expert of some sort. In that case, you can trust your initial reaction, because you're probably right. Well... unless you've paid attention to the wrong things... in which case you are proabably wrong. So, Don't judge a book by its cover - ESPECIALLY THIS BOOK!! You will see it on the bestseller list and assume it is worth reading (as The Tipping Point arguably was) rather than a weak, seemingly rushed attempt to ride on the coattails of his earlier success.

Our Hidden Programming, June 20, 2008


Malcolm Gladwell is a "gatekeeper." In his book, Blink, he opens the gate to a room of self-discovery - a room that allows the reader, perhaps for the first time, to realize that our actions and judgments often are not as "objective" as we might think. Mr. Gladwell, through a series of examples and stories, explains that we each have our own "programming" - dare I say "prejudices" - about how we (and the cultures we grow up in) judge and respond to things we "see" and "know to be true".

He also says there are other more benign, untainted impressions that come to us in the "blink" of an eye. About these untainted impressions he says: "We don't know where our first impressions come from or precisely what they mean, so we don't always appreciate their fragility." Implicitly he suggests that we also don't realize how powerful our "programming" is to potentially override and taint those benign and fragile first impressions.

Mr. Gladwell provides examples of what some people have done to preserve their "blink" experiences and offset their "pre-programming" - a fun read - I recommend it.

As I was reading through the book, I was reminded of two other books (both of which I highly recommend) by Ariel and Shya Kane. In Working on Yourself Doesn't Work: A Book About Instantaneous Transformation and Being Here: Modern Day Tales of Enlightenment, the authors include discussions of human mechanical behaviors - behaviors we absorb from our families and cultures at an early age. They point out that we are mostly unaware of these mechanics and until we become aware of them, they can influence and even "control" our behavior and life choices - very eye-opening and easy to read as well!

All three of these books are well worth reading - enjoy!

Absolutely enthralling and fascinating throughout., March 20, 2005
This is one of the most fascinating books I have read in some time. The book centers on the concept of how fast we really do make judgments, called "thin slicing", and how deeper analysis can sometimes provide less information than more. It is all about cognitive speed.

The concept of "thin slicing" is dissected and explained. What I found fascinating, and also common sense, is that we process information on a subconscious level, "behind the door", and process so holistically that to over analyze can actually hinder our ability to make decisions.

Several key points are applicable in business. One of the in depth studies looked at a military leader who was particularly successful. One of his more poignant observations was that a great leader needs to let the people do their work. When deciding how often to follow up "you are diverting them, now they are looking upward instead of downward. You are preventing them from resolving the situation". (Page 118) Further "allowing people to operate without having to explain themselves constantly ... enables rapid cognition" (Page 119). It seems that most micro-management actually prevents people from successful decision making.

Another strange phenomenon occurs when we try and explain how we come to some conclusions. It seems that the more we try to analyze how we come to some conclusions the less reliable they become.

The ability to absorb and detect minute changes in facial expressions allows us to essentially "read minds" if we pay attention. There are several chapters on how reliable we can be in predicting behavior with very little information.

Overall, this book is so well written that I had a hard time putting it down. My only compliant, and it is a minor one, is that the book just ends. No summary or wrap up, just "boom", it's over. However, that is more a testament to how engaging the book is I suppose. Highly recommended!

Finished before it really told me anything, May 1, 2006
I bought the book before a flight after reading the adulatory comments on the front and back.

It started well, with the premise that the subconsious forms a conclusion long before the consious mind is aware of it. I suppose it is obvious, but he makes the point well.

From there things get a bit lost. Reading along I soon realised that I was nearing the end and the number of pages left for a profound and all-encompassing conclusion was rapidly diminishing.

Unfortunately it never came.

This is a very short book which promises much but delivers little. I hope that the author will follow up with something more worthy of the title. It is really just a collection of true stories, mostly about racial or sexual prejudice, which leave a bad taste in the mouth. Each story is drawn out as well, a little like the History Channel.

I'm sure that there is a good book somewhere in this subject matter, but I can't for the life of me reconcile the reviews that this book has received (Compelling, Astonishing, Brilliant) with my experience. Maybe they only read the first chapter. Maybe I missing something.

Since reading this book I have been looking around and found this one:

The Genie Within: Your Subconcious Mind, how It Works And How To Use It (Paperback)

Maybe this would be a better choice for this subject matter.

Without a Thought !, March 6, 2008
Blink is a " must read " about the power and accuracy of our first impressions and intuitions about people and events. Malcolm Gladwell skillfully presents several case studies that inspire me to recognize my own intuitive talent and also to notice my tendencies to dismiss my intuitive knowing in favor of analysis and self-doubt.
He cleverly examines stereotyping and predjudice, and demonstrates how this influences and distorts our intuition.
As a result of this book, I feel more confident and freer to express myself spontaneously! Tuning in to my first impressions is fun and actually gives me a greater sense of well-being and living in the moment, wow!
Another great source of well-being and Instantaneous Transformation is Being Here: Modern Day Tales of Enlightenment by Ariel and Shya Kane. This lovely anthology gives me a window into living with ease and transforms everyday circumstances into life giving opportunities. I can experience enlightenment now! Without any complicated discipline, Guru, or hoops to jump through. Thanks to the Kanes and Gladwell for giving us modern day access to a truly satisfying life.

... Read more

Editorial Review

With his phenomenally successful Feeling Good: The New Mood Therapy, Dr. David Burns introduced a groundbreaking, drug-free treatment for depression.Now in this long-awaited sequel, he reveals powerful new techniques and provides step-by-step exercises that help you cope with the full range of everyday problems.

* Free from fears, phobias, and panic attacks
* Overcome self-defeating attitudes
* Discover the five secrets of intimate communication
* Put an end to marital conflict
* Conquer procrastination and unleash your potential for success

With an up-to-date section on everything you need to know about commonly prescribed psychiatric drugs and anxiety disorders such as agoraphobia and obsessive-compulsive disorder, this remarkable guide can show you how to feel good about yourself and the people you care about.You will discover that life can be an exhilarating experience. ... Read more

Reviews

Effective and user-friendly tools, September 2, 2001
In both this book and its predecessor ("Feeling Good"), David Burns has done an excellent job of putting tools into our hands so we can change the feelings and behaviors that we want to change. The tools in this book that I've found most helpful include (i) instruments to measure both anxiety and depression, (ii) a "pleasure-predicting sheet," (iii) a daily mood log to help identify and change unwanted feelings, and (iv) tools to help you overcome procrastination.

I agree with another reviewer who said that this book and "Feeling Good" overlap to a great extent, and I recommend this one. You don't need to read "Feeling Good" first, and the worksheets in this "Handbook" are larger and easier to copy and work with.

While Dr. Burns uses tools from cognitive behavioral therapy, I strongly recommend that you also obtain "A Guide to Rational Living," by Albert Ellis. Dr. Ellis invented rational (cognitive) behavioral therapy in the mid-1950s and still writes, lectures, and works with clients. While Burns' books are generally better written than Ellis', Dr. Ellis teaches you how to use cognitive techniques more effectively than Dr. Burns does. Instead of just showing you how to recognize faulty thinking that produces unwanted feelings and behaviors and think of alternative thoughts, Dr. Ellis teaches you how to PERSUADE YOURSELF that this faulty thinking is both irrational and counter-productive. In my view, the difference in their approaches is similar to that between an intellectual discussion and a thoroughly persuasive speech. In order to make the desired changes, you need to convincingly and powerfully persuade yourself to change your thinking.

Together, this book and "A Guide to Rational Living" give you most all of the tools you need to experience the changes that you want in your feelings and behaviors. The approaches in both books require work. Passively reading them (or anything) will not lead to significant changes. The best news of all is this: There is hope! And you can have the tools at your fingertips.

A moderately effective course in cognitive therapy, May 22, 2002
Many people don't buy into the whole "root of your problems" mentality that seems to infect the mental health fields nowadays. That's understandable. There certainly is something to be said for a more pragmatic, straightforward approach to the treatment of certain mental states. It is to this group of people that Dr. David Burns addresses his Feeling Good Handbook.

The methods in The Feeling Good Handbook are aimed at helping those suffering from depression, anxiety, and other "mild" mental issues to train themselves into healthy mental patterns. Burns has put together a series of writing exercises and journaling that is intended to help readers recognize fallacies in their thought processes. He then spends a great deal of time on each of these fallacies of thought and how to overcome them.

Burns is an avid supporter of cognitive therapy. It is obvious that Burns feels the best way to mental health is through learning to master these negative thought processes. Furthermore, he states outright that it is possible to train yourself to be positive and happy by following these exercises.

Like most self-help books, Burns' popular book has both positive and negative attributes. Burns has managed to accurately classify the thought traps that those suffering from clinical depression and anxiety fall into. He also presents them in such a way that they are easily memorable and will often return to the reader's mind throughout the course of the day. Burns also includes a surprisingly accurate quiz to gauge the progress of the reader.

However, Burn's book depends very heavily on the reader following his instructions with exactness--and some of them are extremely tedious. This is, perhaps, not the best way to help those suffering with depression. Usually depression saps an individual of their desire to do anything at all. Additionally, Burns tends to be a little over-simplistic about his methods and even more over-enthusiastic about their results.

On its own, The Feeling Good Handbook is a moderately useful book in the amateur diagnosis and treatment of mild depression. When used in conjunction with a counselor who understands cognitive therapy, this book is an excellent tool in training the reader to think in a new way.

Very important book, June 14, 2004
This is a crucial book to evaluate for those suffering from depression but skeptical of the effectiveness of most psychologists and self-help books.

Burns is one of the biggest popularizers of cognitive-behavioral therapy, one of extremely few therapeutic forms that have stood up to any scientific scrutiny. Over the last 20 years, CBT has become the predominant form of therapy practiced by psychologists. This book is intensive CBT, much more involving and direct than the form practiced in most psychologists' offices.

Burns takes a very simple approach: he does not place any weight on diagnostic categories or figuring out "why" people behave the way they do or the roots of their problems. Instead, every depressed thought is traced to irrational thought processes. Why those thought processes were developed is irrelevant; the challenge is identifying one's distortions and learning to think more rationally.

Contrary to some reviewers' opinions, I believe this book is best for people who have long-term depression in the medium range (recurrent major depression or dysthymia), with substantial experiences with psychologists. Clearly for more extreme cases - a manic depressive or a suicidal person - the first course of action should be a psychiatrist or psychologist, not a self-help book. This book requires a very high level of involvement and personal responsibility. I believe that it is patients who think of themselves as having a medical problem, seeing psychologists and taking medication for years and perhaps feeling dependent on them, who will at some crisis point become frustrated, develop the energy and motivation to work through a book like this and benefit the most from it. Patients with more minor depression will not feel sufficiently motivated to actually do the exercises, which take a substantial amount of time and clash with other life priorities.

CBT encourages short-term (only 12 weeks on average if seeing a psychologist!) therapy and extreme personal responsibility. For most problems, I believe CBT, either in the form of this book or combined with short-term therapy, is much better than seeing a psychologist long-term. Long-term psychotherapy without very clear goals strongly encourages dependence on the psychologist or medication and reinforces the idea that one is permanently ill. This dependence produces further irrational thinking and can very easily lead to continual depression. Reading a book like this and doing its exercises is an exercise in independence and self-reliance and a major accomplishment in itself. The ability to solve one's own problems is difficult to achieve but extremely powerful - perhaps the only solution - for relieving long-term depression.

Burns feels that virtually no one should be on medication long-term - more than about a year - a view that is somewhat debatable (he excludes, obviously, bipolar and schizophrenic patients). The long-term effectiveness of SSRIs is unproven, but Burns' one-year limit seems purely arbitrary.

CBT is also more art than science - although anyone with any experience with psychologists or self-help books will realize that this is true of the entire field. Often Burns' methods and categorizations of irrational thoughts seem completely arbitrary and hardly authoritative. They could probably use more refinement and clarity. What I think is important is that CBT, and even simply reading Burns' book "Feeling Good", have been demonstrated through scientific means - double-blind testing - to produce considerable improvement.

All in all, this is a book with a clear philosophy that has stood up to scientific scrutiny, unlike psychoanalysis or most other therapeutic methods practiced by psychologists. It requires high involvement and emphasizes personal responsibility, and one has to develop considerable motivation to make any use of it. But the results can be extremely worthwhile.

This book helped me overcome a clinical depression!, October 13, 2001
My copy of this book is from 1980. I am certain that the current edition is even more useful! In my case, I combined the cognitive therapy Burns recommends with medication to control my depression, and I would recommend that ANYONE suffering from depression use the same approach. Burns has an excellent treatment of modern antidepressants included in the book.

An exceptionally useful item in the book is a self assessment. I used this to periodically rate my level of depression to show if I was getting better or not. This tool alone is worth the price of the book.

In any case, if you are suffering from the symptoms of depression, GET HELP! From personal experience, it is extremely difficult to dig your way out of depression alone. Burn's book will augment any form of therapy and medication.

By the way, in the early days of my depression, I took the Misnnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory (MMPI) which rates you on a number of items. On the depression scale, I scored 10 out of a possible 10 points! (Which is as bad as it gets!!)

Excellent, December 28, 2000
I would recommend this book to everyone. My psychologist highly recommends it. Infact she was amused by the fact, that as I was talking to her, I was correcting myself. Be warned, however, that there is another book written by this author that have similar information. Get this big book and not the small one it doesn't have all the info. in it and only about 2 worksheets. Without the worksheets to do, it is just food for thought. I got both, but should have just got this one, only.

Genuinely useful, May 2, 2002
I bought this book a few years ago and find myself visiting this page at Amazon because I want to recommend it to a friend and find that my own copy is out on loan to someone else!

There are so many self-help books on the market that I tend to be wary of them, but I found this one genuinely helpful at a time when practical help was really needed. Dr Burns says it very clearly himself - you have to do the exercises to get the benefit, because this sort of approach is all about getting intimate with the thoughts in your own head. The book does give theoretical explanations, but fundamentally it's a practical tool to help you to get inside your own head and change what's going on there. Dr Burns' approach is about challenging your own negative thoughts, which some people might say you don't need a book and exercises to do. I can only say that when I was deeply depressed it was exactly what I did need - someone to take me gently but firmly by the hand and lead me through my own head in order that I could get through the paralysis and begin functioning again.

Dr Burns includes a depression rating test which enables you to monitor your own progress. I found that this had 2 applications - firstly it helped me to take my own depression seriously, and secondly it encouraged me to keep going as I could see the results of Dr Burns' approach on a daily basis.

A lot of people don't like being told what to do, especially when it comes to dealing with their own problems. This book does require that you come at it with an open mind and are willing to be guided to some extent, and are willing to be honest about what's really going on with you. The exercises are deceptively easy and for this reason I can see that some people might be dismissive of the approach. On the plus side you can hit the exercises absolutely at your own level - you don't have to tackle everything all at once. Start with the 'little' things if that's where you're at (motivating yourself to eat lunch, for instance). No-one else can tell you exactly why you're depressed and what's going to make it change for you. This book is for people who really want to feel better and are willing to make an effort on their own behalf but want to do it at their own pace and not feel bullied. It isn't easy to come through depression - it's paralysing by nature. This book can't do it for you, but it can be a companion through it.

I still do refer to this book and use the exercises when I get stuck (it also includes a fantastic section on procrastination which I would recommend to anyone, depressed or not!) I also want to add, though, that at the time that I was first using the book I was also taking anti-depressant medication - without that I wouldn't have been able to even pick up a book like this, never mind work with it! It's not the same for everyone, but don't beat yourself up if you need the medication too.

Pragmatic and effective - do the work and get results., October 13, 1999
I don't like self help books and I don't want to examine my navel.

But in tough times - bad days,or bad weeks - this is a practical outline and series of exercises which helps me clarify my thoughts.

It requires effort but it has helped me immediately. I do recommend it to my friends when they tell me they need to change - quit smoking, lose weight, stop being angry. If you can believe that tomorrow might be better, try this book and give yourself permission to be happier.

This book teaches us a powerful method to feel happy., February 7, 1999
Dr. Burn's, let me thank you from the depths of my heart for writing such a jewel of a book. It is worth a million dollars.

Friends, this book puts in our hands a simple, powerful, fast-acting, and long-lasting formula to feel good about ourselves. The formula is that it is our thoughts that cause our emotions. Our negative emotions (sadness, anger, etc.) are most often caused by our distorted thoughts. The trick to being happy most of the time is to replace those distorted thoughts with more realistic ones. This books clearly explains what thought variables cause what emotions. It also teaches us how to replace those distorted thoughts with more realistic ones. This book encompasses his earlier best-seller "Feeling Good" and goes beyond it by applying the mood therapy to an entire range of everyday problems.

I have never before felt so good about myself. People have actually remarked that I have glow about me. Friends, you should not only buy this book for yourself but should buy an extra one for a good friend.

Your buddy from NYC

Adds nothing to the original "Feeling Good", February 4, 2000
I'm rather disappointed with this book; it adds nothing to what was said in the original Feeling Good (a book I found to be nothing short of revelatory, perhaps the best book on depression self-help I've ever encountered). I'd expected new information and a great deal of useful pencil-and-paper work not contained in the original "FG". There is some of that here, but far too little, and functions neither to add new info to nor to expand meaningfully upon the original book. Also, a quarter to a third of the Handbook consists of a guide to medications. Useful info, indeed, but not the sort of thing I go to a volume on cognitive therapy to read up on--this info is available in so many other places, and as presented here will soon be out-of-date as well.

Wonderful Self Help Book, October 21, 2005
I suffer from mild to moderate social anxiety and depression and have for my entire life. Recently my anxiety has increased to a point that I was going to start taking medication again. I really dislike all the side effects of the medication and as a last resort researched the web for natural anti anxiety solutions that do not have these horrible side effects. While doing this I found many positive references to the Feeling Good Hand Book so I thought what could I lose and bought the book. I have been using the book for a little over a month now and I have easily reduced my anxiety from moderate to mild during that time. I am certain in the next six months I will be able to reduce it by as much again. I can not speak for others but for someone with mild to moderate anxiety and depression do not hesitate and start feeling better soon. Buy the book. ... Read more

Editorial Review

The provocative follow-up to the New York Times bestseller Predictably Irrational

• Why can large bonuses make CEOs less productive?
• How can confusing directions actually help us?
• Why is revenge so important to us?
• Why is there such a big difference between what we think will make us happy and what really makes us happy?

In his groundbreaking book Predictably Irrational, social scientist Dan Ariely revealed the multiple biases that lead us into making unwise decisions. Now, in The Upside of Irrationality, he exposes the surprising negative and positive effects irrationality can have on our lives. Focusing on our behaviors at work and in relationships, he offers new insights and eye-opening truths about what really motivates us on the job, how one unwise action can become a long-term habit, how we learn to love the ones we're with, and more.

Drawing on the same experimental methods that made Predictably Irrational one of the most talked-about bestsellers of the past few years, Ariely uses data from his own original and entertaining experiments to draw arresting conclusions about how—and why—we behave the way we do. From our office attitudes, to our romantic relationships, to our search for purpose in life, Ariely explains how to break through our negative patterns of thought and behavior to make better decisions. The Upside of Irrationality will change the way we see ourselves at work and at home—and cast our irrational behaviors in a more nuanced light.

Reviews

Fascinating look at human behavior

Well worth the wait.

OK, so I'm a fan already

Due credit is given to the power of irrationality

Wow! This is good stuff!

Editorial Review

Reviews

Temple Grandin's latest book: Be kind to your four-footed friends, January 8, 2009
Understanding animals and "Creating the Best Life for Animals" is the focus of Temple Grandin's new book. As it turns out, we have more in common emotionally with our animal friends than we knew. "All animals and people have the same core emotion systems in the brain." The Core Emotions are: 1. Seeking, 2. Rage, 3.Fear, and 4. Panic; plus three sophisticated, special-purpose ones: 5. Lust (sex drive) 6. Care, and 7. Play.

Temple Grandin, as a person with autism, brings her unique perspective about animal emotions and behavior to her readers. Her tendency to "think in pictures", rather than in words--among other things--aids her ability to "see things from animals point of view". Despite the fact that she is autistic, she has achieved an almost unheard of success in the "real world", academically and within the industry of animal husbandry, as also the lay public. Dr. Grandin has authored or co-authored numerous books, and is also a popular speaker.

"Animals Make Us Human" is not only quite readable to the "lay" audience, but the book is also firmly rooted in scientific research. Her co-author, Catherine Johnson, PhD; is a writer in the field of neuropsychiatry and the brain. The book is well-indexed and extensively footnoted. This is a huge improvement over her earlier book,"Animals in Translation". She sites over one hundred scientific papers (which I find amazing)that help back up the information she bases on her personal intuition and experiences with the animals she works with. Also, she loves them.

I found her previous book, "Animals in Translation", intriguing and readable. Although I found much of her reasoning to be rather speculative, it did give me a lot of food for thought. I found myself quoting from it, or remembering passages that relating to dogs or cats that made me see my pets in a different light. While she writes lots of interesting things about these house pets, her very favorite animal is the cow. I just love the part where she lies in the middle of the cow pasture, until the cows get curious and come over to her and lick her face!

I've been excited to read Grandin's new book,"Animals make us Human"; every since I listened to a 38 minute interview she gave on the NPR "Fresh Air" program on January 5th. This subject promises to be just as interesting and eminently relevant to us human-animals. The first chapter, "What Do Animals Need?" laid a good basis for understanding the subsequent chapters. In "A Dog's Life" I learned that some assumptions that we make about dogs, e.g. pack behavior and the concept of "alpha wolf" may not be entirely correct. (No spoilers here! You'll have to read it yourself to find out why!). The next chapters are also about my animal favorites: Cats and Horses. Of course we read about livestock animals (Grandin's speciality), as well as wild and captive wild animals.

Regarding prices and availability of the book, I checked all the major national bookstores, and each of them had a significantly higher price for this book than the price here at Amazon. Some of the stores don't even have the book on their shelves yet. So you can get it faster and cheaper from Amazon. Free two-day delivery for members of Amazon Prime. Or add $3.99, as I did, for overnight delivery. An excellent price for an excellent book. I also appreciate that the book's binding, print, and the paper it is printed on is good quality. It's a keeper. Recommended.

Living well with domestic animals, February 17, 2009
Grandin, an animal behaviorist known for her humane slaughterhouse designs and her outstanding books on autism (particularly her memoir "Thinking in Pictures") and relationships with animals ("Animals in Translation"), focuses on how we can give domestic animals the best life.

Most people will find the chapters on cats and dogs the most useful. Other chapters explore the emotional and physical worlds of horses, cows, pigs, poultry, wildlife and zoo animals and how each intersects with humans (not always a pretty picture). In each, Grandin engages the reader with illuminating behavioral studies and empathic interpretations.

She approaches her subject with a system. "The rule is simple: Don't stimulate RAGE, FEAR, and PANIC if you can help it, and do stimulate SEEKING and also PLAY."

Much of her advice is common sense but the science offers fascinating reinforcement and explanation. Purebred dogs, for instance, have lost a lot of the wolf's natural submissive behaviors -- designed to keep the peace -- and may no longer be able to recognize warning signs in other dogs.

She also calls the animal's natural social evolution into play. Dogs, she says, descend from families of wolves, not packs, and are looking for a parent, not an alpha. Horses' fear and flight responses are the basis of their survival in the wild and training them requires reassurance, not breaking.

She shows how to recognize emotional states in animals and gives advice on avoiding negative reactions. All animals are frightened by new things -- and all animals are attracted to new things. It all depends on how it's presented -- forcibly or voluntarily.

In conclusion Grandin observes that "many cattle have better lives than some of the pampered pets," citing separation anxiety in dogs who hate to be left alone for hours. In Grandin's view, if people paid attention to the emotional lives of the creatures that depend on them, all would have a better quality of life.

While particularly of interest to people with pets or farm animals, Grandin's take on animals always sparks reflection.

Insightful and spectacular. Oprah needs to pick this today., January 21, 2009
I read this book in one sitting. As a veterinarian and writer, I've come across many, many silly books about animals. But Animals Make Us Human (along with Animals In Translation) is truly an enlightening and thought-provoking and dare I say 'necessary' read for any pet owner or anyone in the animal husbandry industry. This should be an Oprah pick for the mere chance to open the minds of the general populace to the natural world around us and those inhabitants who share this globe with us. For true insight, forget Cesar Millan...read this book today.

Outstanding - provides a great deal of insight, August 1, 2009
This is an excellent book. As someone very interested in the ethical treatment of animals, this provides a wonderful framework for thinking about zoos, animals in the wild, pets and animals used for food. Not polemical in the sense of taking a radical view one way or the other on anything, but incredibly practical and realistic. All recommendations are based on field work and research - not opinion only.

Her discussion of dog behavior is fascinating.

Time to read some of her other books!

A voice for the voiceless, January 9, 2009
Animals have a powerful and eloquent advocate in author Temple Grandin, whose autism perhaps helps her connect with them. "Autism made school and social life hard, but it made animals easy," she explains. The subhead is Creating the Best Life for Animals, and that is the focus of each chapter. Anyone who loves animals will find this information fascinating and useful.

Animals make me happy. It is important to me that animals are happy themselves. It truly distresses me when animals are unhappy. Although I have lapsed, I was a vegetarian for years because of the thought of a slaughterhouse and what goes on there. Animals Make Us Human is a book for those of us who care deeply about animal welfare.

Grandin starts out with the basic needs of all animals: freedom from hunger, thirst, discomfort, pain, injury and disease. The guts of the book, however, are about more "human" needs: freedom to express normal behavior and freedom from fear and distress. These needs remind me of our own human right to the pursuit of happiness. Grandin's focus on emotions as the key to an animal's happiness will ring true to any pet owner or animal lover.

The chapters on livestock -- especially the one on poultry -- have some distressing passages on how these animals are sometimes mistreated. Grandin's work in the industry to make the system more humane is a gift. So is this book.

Other books by Temple Grandin include Animals in Translation: Using the Mysteries of Autism to Decode Animal Behavior and Emergence: Labeled Autistic.

Here's the chapter list:
1. What do animals need?
2. A dog's life
3. Cats
4. Horses
5. Cows
6. Pigs
7. Chickens and other poultry
8. Wildlife
9. Zoos
10. Afterword: Why do I still work in the industry?

This will change the way you look at dog behaviors!, September 27, 2009
I believe that I have read all of Dr. Grandin's previous books, however this to me is the best one yet! As someone who nearly never marks up a book, my copy of Animals Make Us Human has now set the record for my most folded, underlined and highlighted so far!

Dr. Grandin provides numerous "ah-HAH" moments......presenting us with ideas where you immediately feel its' truth.

As an example, I've never been able to buy into the "alpha-dog" concept presented in so many dog training books and popular TV shows. Employing domination techniques (and especially an "alpha-roll") is counter-intuitive when I look into the eyes of my canine friends.

Dr. Grandin cites studies of wolves in their natural environment that indicate that, "In the wild, wolves don't live in wolf packs, and they don't have an alpha male who fights the other wolves to maintain his dominance. Our whole image of wolf packs is completely wrong. Instead, wolves live in the way people do: in families made up of a mom, a dad, and their children."

To some, the difference between an alpha male and a father may not seem so significant, but to me it makes all the difference in the world. It's the difference between a relationship based in dominance and aggression and one based on love and mutual respect.

For all serious students of our relationship with dogs this is not only a "must read", but a "must read twice"!

Temple Grandin Explains Making Animals Happy, August 10, 2009
Temple Grandin's newest book on animals does not disappoint. I won't give a full synopsis, since other reviewers have done that, but basically, Grandin writes that all animals have core emotions that either need to be stimulated or suppressed (depending on the emotion) for the animal to be happy. This applies to pets, like our dogs and cats, farm animals, wild animals, and zoo animals. Considering all of the situations in which we find animals, Grandin is thorough, and her principles are easy to apply to animals in any situation. (I volunteer in an animal shelter, and I have already applied many of her thoughts.) She gives plenty of examples, and her writing style is, of course, straightforward, simple, and concise.

I picked up this book because of the chapters on dogs and cats (of which I have both), but I was fascinated by the chapters on farm animals (she covers horses, cows, pigs, and chickens) and zoo animals. Be warned: if you find yourself in that "omnivore's dilemma" of wanting to be humane to animals but also wanting to be an omnivore, this can complicate your situation. Grandin is straightforward about what happens to animals raised for consumption, and although it can be difficult to read, I like that she is balanced. She does not take a stance on whether it is right or wrong to eat meat; she simply says that these animals would not exist if they weren't raised for consumption and it is our duty to make their lives happy. I admire her for being an animal-lover and doing so much good in the slaughter industry. There are also some fascinating examples in the zoo chapter, such as how Grandin and her team go about training some high-strung antelope to stand still while blood is drawn.

I found this book insightful, easy to read, interesting, and chock full of things to apply in my life with my pets, my life as an omnivore, and my life working with shelter animals, all of which will make the animals' lives I have an effect on better.

Interesting read, October 28, 2009
I'm not sure what role the co-author played (Catherine Johnson), but the book's strong suit is Gradin's command of scientific literature on animal behavior. Her areas of expertise are really livestock, though the chapters on domestic pets (dogs and cats) may be of most interest to most readers. (I'm surprised there isn't a chapter devoted to sheep and/or goats.) On p. 5, she states "all animals and people have the same core emotion systems in the brain," and then discusses the core emotions of SEEKING, RAGE, FEAR, PANIC & PLAY in subsequent chapters on various animal groups (other core emotions--LUST, CARE--aren't focused on). Despite her work for the meat industry, Grandin has probably single-handedly done more to promote quality-of-life for livestock than any animal rights' organization. She recognizes the contradiction and moves on. Whatever the case, this is an important work that is not an easy read but worth the effort. The author seeks to understand the emotional life of animals through the filter of her autism and scientific literature, making for a fascinating read.

most important animal book ever, January 27, 2009
this is an amazing and fascinating window into the brains and true needs of our closest animals. it demolishes destructive myths and provides truly useful and practical insights into how to make animals happier. it is science based with many fascinating anecdotes and examples. i could say much more but im not used to typing on my kindle yet. get this read it and share it as widely as possible for the sake of all the animals. and for your own sake.

Another Temple Grandin Classic, January 20, 2009
Ever since reading "Emergence: Labeled Autistic" over 25 years ago while studying to be an occupational therapist, I have been adding to my Temple Grandin library. Its not just her courage to overcome her disability to be the successful writer, public speaker and animal advocate that I admire, but the ongoing sharing of how autism gives her special talents that society ought to respect.

In this new book, the reader again is reminded that abnormal behaviors in both humans and other animals can be decreased or eliminated by understanding the root causes whether it be anxiety, seeking behaviors or the need to play. Dr. Grandin provides the facts to dispel animal myths in an engaging way, teaches some basic behavior modification techniques that every parent should understand and again entertains the reader whether therapist, pet owner or animal professional.

I will admit that certain visualizations make me queasy and I stopped reading Animals in Translation when I got to the description of how one removes semen to be used in artificial insemination. After reading and enjoying Animals Make Us Human straight through, my sensibilities were disturbed by the image of chickens sleeping on top of one another and the origins of the word "bully". (Being a visual thinker like Temple Grandin, I also walk away with images of happy pigs chewing up hoses and monkeys activating switches). But the point of this book isn't to make the reader feel good but to increase understanding of how we humans, the other animals and the planet depend on one another. I am now questioning my previous perception that vegetarianism was best for the planet (having read Diet for a Small Planet)because as Dr. Grandin explains we need grazing, pooping animals out there fertilizing the land to prevent dessertization. Things aren't so black and white any more and this book is very thought provoking in respects to understanding our relationships with animals, other people (especially others with differences) and ourselves.
Barbara Smith, M.S., OTR/L is the author of The Recycling Occupational Therapist and Still Giving Kisses: A Guide to Helping and Enjoying the Alzheimer's Victim You Love

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Editorial Review

Reading this book will make you less sure of yourself—and that’s a good thing. In The Invisible Gorilla, Christopher Chabris and Daniel Simons, creators of one of psychology’s most famous experiments, use remarkable stories and counterintuitive scientific findings to demonstrate an important truth: Our minds don’t work the way we think they do. We think we see ourselves and the world as they really are, but we’re actually missing a whole lot.
 
Chabris and Simons combine the work of other researchers with their own findings on attention, perception, memory, and reasoning to reveal how faulty intuitions often get us into trouble. In the process, they explain:
 
• Why a company would spend billions to launch a product that its own analysts know will fail
• How a police officer could run right past a brutal assault without seeing it
• Why award-winning movies are full of editing mistakes
• What criminals have in common with chess masters
• Why measles and other childhood diseases are making a comeback
• Why money managers could learn a lot from weather forecasters
 
Again and again, we think we experience and understand the world as it is, but our thoughts are beset by everyday illusions. We write traffic laws and build criminal cases on the assumption that people will notice when something unusual happens right in front of them. We’re sure we know where we were on 9/11, falsely believing that vivid memories are seared into our minds with perfect fidelity. And as a society, we spend billions on devices to train our brains because we’re continually tempted by the lure of quick fixes and effortless self-improvement.
 
The Invisible Gorilla reveals the myriad ways that our intuitions can deceive us, but it’s much more than a catalog of human failings. Chabris and Simons explain why we succumb to these everyday illusions and what we can do to inoculate ourselves against their effects. Ultimately, the book provides a kind of x-ray vision into our own minds, making it possible to pierce the veil of illusions that clouds our thoughts and to think clearly for perhaps the first time.
  ... Read more

Reviews

Great Book, April 12, 2010

Fascinating analysis of how our brains fool us, March 27, 2010

Warning: This Book May Cause You Not To Trust Yourself ;-), April 9, 2010

There is How We Think We Are and Then There is How We Are!, June 3, 2010
Lately, there has been a plethora of books trying to popularize the more interesting and counter-intuitive results from fields like behavioral psychology. All of those books, as far as I'm aware, mention a particularly famous study where participants are asked to view a video of basketball players and asked to count the number of passes. As odd as it sounds, about half of the participants fail to notice the "invisible gorilla" - a man dressed like a gorilla strolling from one side of the court to the other.

These two authors are the inventors of that and subsequent experiments. In other words, these authors are very knowledgeable about their field because, in a sense, they invented one of its primary experiments.

What is their focus in this book? Well, it is not so much that people didn't notice the "invisible gorilla" that surprised them, but the adamance with which participants denied that they could have missed something so obvious. Many disbelieved that there was actually a gorilla in the tape they were shown, accusing he researchers of playing a trick on them. So, the authors' mission in this book is to explore the human tendency toward overconfidence in their abilities.

Each chapter focuses on a different "illusion" that comes from the human tendency to (very subconsciously) overestimate our ability. They are as follows:

Chapter 1 - Illusion of Attention, or, the belief that we are attentive to much more than we actually are at any given moment.
Chapter 2 - Illusion of Memory, or, the illusion that our memories are much more exact than they are.
Chapter 3 - Illusion of Confidence, or, the illusion that confidence (in others) is a good sign of competence.
Chapter 4 - Illusion of Knowledge, or, the illusion that we have detailed knowledge about many things that, in fact, we only have vague knowledge of.
Chapter 5 - Illusion of Cause, or, the illusion that two things happening sequentially necessarily signifies scause/effect relationship.
Chapter 6 - Illusion of Potential, or, the illusion that in every human, there is a vast array of untapped potential waiting to come out (if only we learn to use more of our brains, listen to Mozart, "train our brains" etc.)

The thing is that while this book is a very interesting and well-written one for casual reading, each of these illusions has very potentially serious consequences. While the authors present studies and anecdotes in each chapter that illustrate each phenomenon, the message is very serious: if we are not careful to be somewhat aware of our tendency to overestimate our abilities, we could send the wrong person to prison (if we are a witness), spend too much time and money on the wrong things for our child's cognitive development (if we are a parent), or even cause an accident (if we are a texter-while-driving).

For instance, the authors spend a great deal of time in chapter 1 debunking the myth that is multitasking. In reality, study after study show that we can only multi task when (a) all but one of the things we are doing is completely routine, or (b) alternate our attention rapidly, but often ineffectively, between all the things we are doing. It is literally impossible to do two non-routine things well at the same time. And this leads to people thinking that they can text or talk on their cell while driving, when studies show that this leads to the exact same type of delayed reactions exhibited by drunk drivers. Once we text or talk, we can only drive well when nothing unexpected happens. Should a car dart in front of us, our reaction time will be about the same as the drunk driver.

Another example? Chapter 5 spends much time examining the disjunct between how scientific studies work to establish causal connections, and how the human brain does it. The latter often falls victim to seeing causal relationships in events that are simply sequential or correlational. Particularly, the media often tends to report a causal link between x and y when the scientific study only said that factors x and y were correlated (and the cause may be z or something more complex). We also tend, in our personal lives, to give more credence to anecdotes than statistics. Put these together, and it leads to a lot of wasted money and time chasing false leads (like trying to undo autism by not getting children vaccinated, or buying Baby Mozart CD's based on very flawed reports).

All in all, this book is not only interesting and entertaining to read, but has some very serious lessons to teach. One would think a book telling us that we are not often all that we think we are might imbue pessimism into its readers. This book really does the opposite: it shows us that by knowing where we are most likely to make mistakes in estimating our abilities, we actually INCREASE our competence (or, am I just succumbing to the illusion of confidence?).

Now you see it, May 27, 2010

This is an important book, May 8, 2010

Entertaining and thought provoking: a good read, April 5, 2010

Interesting, Humbling, Intelligent, April 28, 2010

"It is surprising how often we really have no clue.", April 18, 2010

Freakonomics with a psychology bent., May 15, 2010

Editorial Review

In his runaway bestseller Guns, Germs, and Steel, Jared Diamond brilliantly examined the circumstances that allowed Western civilizations to dominate much of the world. Now he probes the other side of the equation: What caused some of the great civilizations of the past to fall into ruin, and what can we learn from their fates? Using a vast historical and geographical perspective ranging from Easter Island and the Maya to Viking Greenland and modern Montana, Diamond traces a fundamental pattern of environmental catastrophe—one whose warning signs can be seen in our modern world and that we ignore at our peril. Blending the most recent scientific advances into a narrative that is impossible to put down, Collapse exposes the deepest mysteries of the past even as it offers hope for the future. ... Read more

Reviews

The discipline of geography is back!, January 7, 2005
"Collapse" is a wonderful book! Prof. Diamond combines hard science, rigorous historical research, and his own personal knowledge of people from the Bitterroot Valley of Montana to the west coast of Greenland to Rwanda to the highlands of New Guineau. He pulls together clear and compelling explanations of how events unfolded (and are still unfolding) in various parts of the world.

His accounts of various human communities draw on real data from a wide variety of academic fields, including isotope analysis, pollen analysis, tree-ring analysis, seismology, agronomy, archaeology, sociology, and even the history of religion. His explanations of each of these disciplines are lucid without oversimplification. But, the strength of the book comes from the the way he combines results from all these fields to create straightforward narratives of what might have happened as various communities rose and fell.

If I were I high school "social studies" teacher I would be talking to my principal today, saying "I want to put together an honors-level geography course and I want to use this as the textbook."

I do have one criticism. The subject matter of the book is tremendously consequential to people alive today, and hopefully "policy wonks" in governments will study the book and take it seriously. But, the title is a bit inflammatory. What's more, Prof. Diamond makes sure to explain the significance for the United States of his accounts of the demise of various ancient communities. Some of these explanations extrapolate from ancient situations to modern in a way that isn't quite as solid as the rest of the book. Diamond's extrapolations are very cleary marked as such. However, I am still afraid that they, combined with the title, will provide an excuse for people to dismiss the book as a "pro-environment anti-business" ideological polemic. That would be unfortunate, because it is actually balanced and nuanced in its explanation of the human condition.

There is no somewhere else, January 13, 2005
About 15 years ago, I was shocked to read the results of an American aerial survey of roads in remote areas of the country, which concluded that there is (in 1990) no place in the continental United States that is more than about 20 miles, as the crow flies, from the nearest road. At Philmont Scout Ranch in the Sangre de Cristo range of the Rockies in NE New Mexico, to which many hundreds of Scouts travel each summer for an extended "wilderness" hike, the paths, directions and speeds of each of the flood of hiking parties is managed on a wall-size map in their war room, much like a flight control room of a modern airport. The conscious purpose of the war room is to present "the illusion of wilderness" to the hikers, by preventing them from seeing that there are crowds of other hikers nearby in every direction, only hidden by a bend, a ridge, a ravine.

In one of Jared Diamond's earlier books, Guns, Germs and Steel, he explored the role of man's natural environment in shaping the unique nature of the human societies that emerged in different regions of the world. It was backed by a prodigious body of research spanning anthropology, physiology, botany, archeology, animal behavior and climatology, to name only a few fields. Although his conclusions were satisfying and plausible, the subjects were too remote in time to garner more than a smile and a nod of the head. The paucity of detailed evidence regarding the biologic emergence of man, and man's development of agriculture, animal domestication and civilization, dooms Dr. Diamond's conclusions on those subjects to the realm of conjecture.

Now we are presented with the other side of the equation: the role of man's behavior in shaping the environments in which he lives. While Professor Diamond seems to go to great lengths to present us with a glimmer of optimism in the face of a substantial body of contrary information, the thrust of this new volume is that today, anybody's environmental problem is everybody's problem. His discussions of past failed (and successful) societies serve as a sequence of progressively more complex environmental scenarios highlighting the choices-both intentional and unintentional-that determined the ultimate outcome.

One wonders how intelligent people in those societies that ultimately failed seemed to have made decisions that, at least in retrospect, were patently damaging to their future survival. Diamond offers numerous examples of contemporary environmental challenges for which perfectly rational individuals and governments have made, and continue to make, decisions that are damaging to their future survival.

Over thirty years ago, JW Forrester, then at MIT, developed a computer simulation called World II, which modeled scores of human and environmental factors, in order to see what future the model would predict for the world. In brief, the simulation demonstrated catastrophic population collapse between 2040 and 2060, regardless of how the values of variables and their interactions were adjusted. The only stable simulations required that the world population be set to below its current (1970) value. Well, we can set aside their conclusions as peculiar to their particular set of assumptions, but in Jared Diamond's current book, he concludes that each of the individual, massive environmental issues covered in his various examples will reach catastrophic crisis by about 2050, if they are not addressed promptly and in a dramatic way. I find the correlation sobering.

From the standpoint purely of readable history, Collapse offers more credible conclusions about the decline of the societies it surveys than does the massive 12 volumes of Arnold Toynbee's A Study of History. Toynbee leaned heavily on Hegelian dialectic, Diamond on compelling archeological studies and on the physical sciences. Though a professor of geography, Diamond's formal training was in biology and physiology. Add to that his lifelong studies in ornithology, which have contributed to his wide-ranging travels in third world countries, and it should come as no surprise that the science presented here stands up fairly well to close scrutiny.

This is a book that will certainly appeal to historians, environmentalists and folks who want to know what the tree-hugging fuss is all about. For those who might be disinclined toward environmentalist assertions, this book can serve as a framework for the serious concerns that must be addressed in some fashion.

History, ecology, technology, politics, and a warning rolled into one..., January 16, 2006
A debate between two camps continues to rage. One side thinks that the modern world continues to careen toward a non-sustainable future and impending doom. The other group thinks that "environmentalists" exaggerate their claims about a coming ecological crash. As usual the sides remain somewhat unproductively polarized with neither giving an inch to the other. This book's title exposes where Jared Diamond's sympathies stand, but he also takes some surprisingly neutral views. For one, he claims that some contemporary businesses have in fact successfully taken environmental concerns into consideration, and that these concerns have made them money and boosted their respect globally. Diamond doesn't believe that big business and environmental groups necessarily remain indissoluble enemies. And he goes further by suggesting that environmentalists should unabashedly praise those companies that have suceeded in balancing economics with ecology. "Collapse", though admittedly more slanted towards the environmental side of the continuum, nonetheless tries to narrow the gap between the two aforementioned camps.

"Collapse" takes the reader on a dizzying historical and global tour. The chapters weave in and out of modern, ancient, and medieval worlds. Along the way Diamond extrapolates which behaviors have threatened (or arguably are currently threatening) a significant inexorable decline in a particular society's population. By juxtaposing past and present societies he hopes to reveal the simularities between societies that no longer exist and the trends of the world today. The book surreptitously asks whether our current world is threatened by a global collapse.

Diamond uses a "five-point framework" to analyze various societies. These comprise certain behaviors and characterstics, namely, environmental damage, climate change, hostile neighbors, friendly trade partners, and a society's responses to its environmental problems. With these tools in hand, Diamond travels to Montana, Easter Island, the Pitcairn and Henderson Islands, the ancient and medieval Anasazi cultures in North America, the Maya, Norse Greenland, New Guinea, Tikopia, Tokugawa-era Japan, Rwanda, Hispaniola, China, and Australia. Each of these societies, both past and present, receive analysis in terms of the five point framework. For example, the Greenland Norse collapsed, according to Diamond, due to all five factors. Whereas Easter Island collapsed only due to three. But Diamond also discusses past successes such as Tikopia and Tokugawa Japan. These two societies managed to control their resources and avoid the others' fate. And those fates included horrifying ends in wars, mass starvation, and sometimes cannabalism.

The discussion of Norse Greenland receives three full length chapters (which at times seems a little too lengthy). Why? In a talk that Diamond gave for the Long Now Foundation in 2005 (downloadable from the Foundation's website), he claimed that he wanted to show that collapse doesn't only happen to non-europeans. Some skeptics may claim that collapse only happens to so-called "primitives". But the Norse Greelanders were medieval Europeans who desperately tried to hold on to their European Christian roots in Greenland, but they all ended up dying sometime in the 15th century. The reasons why remain somewhat mysterious, though archeologists have found evidence of starvation and cannabalism at the long abandoned sites. By contrast, the Greenland Inuit long outlasted the Norse.

Diamond thinks that societies also need to re-evaluate their values to survive in different climates. In addition, when the elite begin isolating themselves that often spells trouble for a society. Diamond sees this happening in our world today (in "gated" communities and private funding for personal amenities) as well as evidence for all of the above listed five points. He argues that our current course appears unsustainable unless we take action. In the end, he does leave room for hope (as evidenced by the societies that "saved" themselves and peoples).

Diamond also addresses the refutations often leveled against the environmental side of the spectrum. One-liners such as "technology will save us" or "the environment must be balanced against the economy" receive their own refutations. Finally, he presents justifications for his comparative method of juxtaposing and extrapolating the problems of past societies onto our own.

Diamond never argues that the contemporary world will inevitably collapse. He does admit to seeing many danger signs. In the end, whether or not readers agree with Diamond's conclusions, the book does a good job of presenting collapse as at least one of the possible outcomes of a society's actions. Much of the modern world doesn't seem to accept or even to realize this possibility. At the very least governments and citizens need to be aware that irresponsible actions could lead to a collapse. Infinite progress and expansion isn't a given. Though this book could have included much more information (along with analyses of many more now extinct societies), it provides a good foundation for thinking and debate on this increasingly important subject. And though it has its flaws "Collapse" nonetheless represents a book that environmental skeptics will have to contend with.

A triumph of mass marketing, March 22, 2005
I'm an old fan of Diamond, but with each book I like him less. "Collapse" isn't really about science or ecology or the lessons of history, but how to sell books. Take a no-argument topic (People can destroy their environment,) add urgency (This is happening to us!)get some research assistants to dig up what interesting facts they can (even if they get them wrong,) and get a saleable author to provide some paragraph links and put his name to it, and everyone makes a buck (except the consumer.)

You can keep publishing costs down by eliminating editors and proofreaders, e.g.: "...for the benefit of the corpses of the souls" instead of "the souls of the corpses." (p.237)

There are plenty of astonishing facts too: We learn that the Norse ships took "a week or more" to cover the 2000-plus sailing miles from Norway to Greenland (Given the means of navigation and the weather in those latitutes, truth is, six weeks would have been a quick trip.) But then time ran backward in those days, because, according to Diamond, Erik the Red assumed that artifacts he found on his first visit to Greenland were left by the Vinland Skraelings. (Trouble is, the discovery of Vinland came 20 years after the discovery of Greenland, so at the time Erik knew nothing of either the land or the people his son Leif later came upon.)

Virtually all of the information on Norse settlements and culture is lifted from a single source, The Vikings, The North Atlantic Saga, by Fitzshugh and Ward eds., published by the Smithsonian in conjunction with its recent touring exhibition. There's no reason to believe Diamond actually read any of the other books in his bibliography, or he'd realize much of the scholarship, such as the work done by Jesse Byock, actually contradicts his conclusions.

Obviously Diamond knows better, but the book was obviously slapped together fast and marketed.

Read the book and enjoy it, but don't trust a single fact in it. Double check everything.

Society in decline isn't a done deal, January 10, 2005
Diamond uses a five point model to examine societies that have declined and collapsed and those that have thrived due to change. Examining the Mayan culture, the people of Easter Island and others, Diamond presents a thoughtful anaylsis as to how these very different cultures (one isolated with no enemies but a rich land and culture badly overtaxed the other a rich culture that that had many contacts and enemies to complicate their lives)to present models that we can use today to deal with these issues regarding the environment, social pressure and others that face our culture.

Diamond's approach argues that none of these cultures were inferior and that they face the same ecological, environmental and, ultimately, social stressors as we do in our world today. He also takes a look at modern societies (including China and Australia)and how they are faring with the 12 modern types of environmental problems. In another section he looks at the good and bad that big business have contributed to the ecology. It's pretty fair balanced overall.

Diamond suggests that societies ultimately choose to fail or succeed based on their problem solving skills, ability to be flexible and change prior to crisis mode. Essentially we can either be victims or lead the charge for change. I didn't feel that an examination of past cultures was a flaw like some reviewers; he examines them in more depth because we already know the outcome and can more clearly trace the evoltionary path that led to their undoing. That path shows up again when examining our modern world and the ways that we are both feeding choas and living with the resources we have as a nation and world. His point about how important it is to understand all of this in a globalized culture seems valid; there are too many interconnected countires now (unlike the Easter Island situation where they were, essentially, isolated and didn't have an impact on other cultures when they finally fell)and if one falls, ultimately, it will have a domino effect on other countries as well putting our world at peril and not just one or two countries.

A warning about Diamond's book seems appropriate. It can be read by the lay person but the dense material might be daunting for some people. Skimming the book may give you can idea of the content but it won't have the same profound impact on your view of the world as reading it from cover to cover. I agree with Diamond's viewpoint on a single important point--change and flexibility will help a society thrive and a society that remains static, denies what occurs around it will fail.

Overshoot and Collapse?, January 9, 2005
This is another great contribution to the public's understanding of crucial issues from the UCLA geographer Jared Diamond. COLLAPSE is an examination of several societies that have collapsed (including Easter Island, the Vikings in Greenland, and the Mayas), as well as a few that have solved their ecological problems and succeeded. As in GUNS, GERMS AND STEEL, his previous Pulitzer Prize-winning book, Diamond takes a big-picture view. The lesson is clear -- we must take action to avoid the collapse of our interdependent global society. "Our world society is presently on a non-sustainable course," observes Diamond (p. 498).

My only criticism of this fine book is that it devotes nearly 500 pages to examining various collapses of the past, and only a brief section at the end to examine our present crisis. In Chapter 16 Diamond presents a summary of the evidence that we are in a condition of overshoot, and in danger of collapse if we stay on our present course. He says we need 1) long-term planning, and 2) a reconsideration of core values, in order to avoid going the way of the Mayas.

I would recommend that everyone who reads COLLAPSE also read LIMITS TO GROWTH: The 30-Year Update (see my review), which presents a much more thorough summary of the evidence Diamond mentions in his concluding chapter, and THE UPSIDE OF DOWN: Catastrophe, Creativity, and the Renewal of Civilization, by political scientist Thomas Homer-Dixon. Once informed of our situation, a crucial book pointing toward the necessary answers is THE SOLAR ECONOMY by Hermann Scheer (see my review).

See my THE CLEAN/RENEWABLE ENERGY REVOLUTION list for more reading, including several books on the impending global Hubbert's Peak for oil.

Not the Best, Does Offer Some Contributions, February 18, 2005
Edit of 20 Dec 07 to add links.

The book does not live up to the title, and one wonders if the book was inspired by the edited work Catastrophe & Culture: The Anthropology of Disaster (School of American Research Advanced Seminar Series) whose basic point is that disasters turn into catastrophe when societies fail to plan and adjust.

On balance, I do not recommend the book to anyone that reads widely, and especially in the ecological economics literature from Herman Daly back through E.O. Wilson The Future of Life, Martin Rees OUR FINAL HOUR: A Scientist's warning : How Terror, Error, and Environmental Disaster Threaten Humankind's Future in This Century--On Earth and Beyond, J. F. Rischard High Noon 20 Global Problems, 20 Years to Solve Them, or the more obvious Club of Rome and that Brown guy. Indeed, for the general audience, J. F. Rischard remains the best overview and the best value.

Having said that, I do not discourage the purchase and absorption of this book. Much of it can be skipped through if you have read other books that do a better job on any individual item (to his credit, the author provides an excellent bibliographic review in his expanded notes section). It is largely a kludge of the ideas and investigations of many others, but does--and this is why it gets four stars from me--pull together in one place, in a very interesting manner, a broad variety of investigations and conclusions.

Here are the highlights that I found worthy of reflection:

1) Gives useful emphasis to the word "ecocide" while bringing forward excellent reviews of how "creeping normalcy" and "landscape amnesia" can undermine any perception of danger or urgency.

2) Summarizes, but not as elegantly as J. F. Rischard, 12 problems and a 5-point framework of contributing factors.

3) Focuses on big business as the core player that must reform, but also emphasizes that big business will not reform until the public lives up to its responsibility for changing the rules of the game and making green business profitable.

4) Provides an impressive, nuanced, and helpful view of China and non-traditional threats coming out of China, including invasive plant and animal species, and noxious gases leaving China with the winds.

5) Alarms regarding Australia, the English-speaking outpost in Asia, which appears much more fragile and vulnerable to collapse than generally appreciated.

6) Explores the destructive nature of religious values that cause deforestation or over-population or other ills that impact on the commons.

7) Bluntly relates environmental instability to political instability. Max Manwaring does it better in his edited work "Environmental Security," but for the general audience, these few pages are important.

8) Provides a concise and helpful thrashing of the 12 or so most common objections to being prudent about our environment.

Deep inside this book, and finally summarized by the author, is a focus on the failure of decision making at all levels of society. A failure to anticipate, a failure to perceive, a failure to attempt remediation, or even if attempted, a failure to achieve remediation, are all failures of each group and its leadership.

The author ends thoughtfully by noting that resolution of our imbalances will come one way or the other. The only choice we have is between peaceful planned sustainable changes, and catastrophic imposed "natural" corrections through war, famine, pestilence, and genocide.

I am very glad to have purchased this book, and would note that it did not make the cut via online browsing, but when examined in an airport bookstore, was found, once in hand and on direct inspection, to be worth the price of purchase and the time to absorb.

Edit of 20 Dec 07. In a larger s trategic context, what I do not see in this book is an emphasis on strategic culture or getting a grip on global reality. The USA has been living on the backs of everyone else, and only now is it starting to sink in that we are part of an The Unconquerable World: Power, Nonviolence, and the Will of the People where everyone is is accutely conscious of The Fifty-Year Wound: How America's Cold War Victory Has Shaped Our World and our The Sorrows of Empire: Militarism, Secrecy, and the End of the Republic (The American Empire Project).

The USA is today (20 Dec 07) a "failed state," and while it is not officially classified as one, it is relevant to note that in 2007 there are 177 failed states, up from 75 in 2005. Bush-Cheney have been terrible to America, and to the rest of the world. Absent a miraculous turning out of a true majority in 2008, America is headed for a depression.

Eco-Driven Genocide Powerfully Described in New Tome, January 8, 2005
This is a fascinating examination of how ecologically speaking, we may be doomed to repeat history's mistakes due to the lack of their immediacy to our consciousness. The prospect of self-preservation on a societal level can be a daunting one, but it is a profound question author Jared Diamond handles with skill and panache in his sweeping book. He primarily covers four extinct civilizations, showing how human-led environmental damage was at least partially responsible for their devastation and illustrating how the ramifications of such behavior persist today. As an evolutionary biologist trained in biochemistry and physiology, Diamond deftly uses comparative methods in his areas of expertise, such as archaeology and anthropology, to marshal evidence that sustaining societies over time depends primarily on the quality of human interaction with the environment. His arguments are compelling and act as a direct counterpoint to more common thinking where ideology, culture, politics and economics help shape the course of history. But the author is far more focused on what they bear on the far more important relationship society has with its climate, geography and natural resources.

The overriding theme of human history, the author feels, is that societies aren't murdered; they commit suicide. He uses the Viking settlements on the coast of Greenland as a prime example. While it did get colder in Greenland in the early 1400's, it didn't get so cold as to make it uninhabitable. The Inuit survived long after the Norse died out, and the Norse had all kinds of advantages, including a more diverse food supply, iron tools, and ready access to Europe. The problem was that the Norse simply couldn't adapt to the country's changing environmental conditions. Human accountability also shaped the fate of Easter Island where seafaring Polynesians settled over a thousand years ago. They cut the trees for canoes and firewood and used logs to help transport huge statues weighing as much as 80 tons. Eventually, they chopped down all the forests, and their society collapsed in an epidemic of cannibalism. By 1600, all of the trees and land birds on Easter Island were extinct. Diamond covers similarly fatalistic behavior in the native American Anasazi tribe in the southwestern U.S. and the Mayan civilization in Central America.

Diamond's perspective is not just historical, as he discusses in depth what is happening now in Somalia, Rwanda, Haiti, China, and Australia, as well as in Montana, a state that once was among the wealthiest in the nation but now struggles with poverty, population decline, and environmental problems. The author remains hopeful by giving more uplifting examples of societies that have found ways to sustain themselves without overexploiting their environments. His conclusion is that what determines a society's fate is how well its leaders and citizens anticipate problems before they become crises and how decisively a society responds. But as we know, and as Diamond corroborates, many societies, including ours, suffer from short-sightedness and political selfishness, which prevent us from seeing the scope of the potential destruction. But it is hopeful, the author asserts, that the U.S. has reduced major air pollutants by a quarter over the past thirty years, as energy consumption and population have risen forty percent. The author's guarded optimism signals a need to take so-called green issues more seriously than we have in the past. Strongly recommended reading.

Not up to Guns, Germs and Steel, July 18, 2005
Diamond's _Guns, Germs and Steel_ and his earlier _Third Chimpanzee_ were both masterpieces of popular science writing: they brought home truths unfamiliar or not-fully-accepted even to people who followed science, and did so in a manner that was brisk and readable without seeming _too_ brisk.

_Collapse_ is not brisk. And it's message, while perhaps far more important that the message of the earlier books, is not news. There are interesting bits: the stuff about the struggles in Montana amongst miners, ranchers and newcomers is well-observed and surprisingly balanced.

But other parts of the story drag: for instance, do any general readers need to know this much about precisely how the Easter Island ecology was depleted? One begins to lose patience with the theme with only the second illustrative case of environmental collapse in the book!

The fascinating question for me is NOT whether environmental collapse is possible or precedented or whether we may be headed for it (I'll give my assent to all three propositions, and Diamond will win over few deniers regardless of how voluminously he writes on the subject).

The question I find fascinating is the one touched upon in the Montana story. Here we have a bunch of people, all of whom have understandable motives for what they are doing, who are collectively destroying their environment.

Diamond's thesis emphasizes the cultural factors that have led to collapse in the past. What I wonder is whether we aren't more or less doomed to destroy and over-exploit our surroundings if left to our own individualistic devices. In other words I wonder if the "invisible hand" of capitalism inevitably leads us to use up all we can lay our hands on. In the 18th century one of the first capitalistic thinkers (Mandeville) argued that individual vice providentially represented a collective benefit. In the 21st, that is no longer true. Perhaps the only solution to our long-term environmental problems is a solution imposed from above, autocratically.

One of the great advantages of technology is that I think this sort of solution would be do-able. Society could be compelled to do other than what individualistic economic sense drove them toward. Not a pleasant thought, but more pleasant than some of the options we see in Diamond's book.

_Collapse_ is thought provoking, but not as good a read as his earlier works, and not at all as challenging.

OPK

Epic look at a major theme in history and today's world, February 16, 2005
_Collapse_ by Jared Diamond is an absolutely epic look at why some past societies that faced grave environmental problems failed, why others succeeded, and what this "rich database" of past civilizations tells us about the current and future problems we face in our world. By the word collapse, Diamond meant a drastic decrease in population as well as in the economy and political and social complexity of a society, as opposed to a more gradual or milder form of decline. While he admitted that sometimes the distinction between a milder form of decline and a collapse is in some cases arbitrary (how drastic does the decline have to be before it is labeled as a collapse), Diamond analyzed a number of "full-fledged collapses" that few people would disagree with classifying as such.

The primary theme of this book is the nature of environmental problems that society face, which he listed in eight categories (habitat destruction and particularly deforestation, soil problems such as erosion and salinization, water supply and management problems, overhunting, overfishing, effects of alien species, human population growth, and increased per capita impact of people), and what they choose to do (or not do) about them.

Diamond made two additional points. The first is that it is na�ve to assume that societies have collapsed solely due to human-caused environmental damage. He provided a five-point framework of possible contributing factors, some of which were at work in the collapse of a given civilization, while others were not. Four of these factors - environmental damage, climate change, hostile neighbors, and friendly trade partners (or the lack thereof) - may not prove significant to a particular society's fortunes, but the fifth factor (a civilization's responses to its environmental problems), always does. The second point is that Diamond is not an advocate of any philosophy of environmental determinism - that the environment in which a civilization exists in means that it will ultimately fail. While for instance the moai-erecting civilization of Easter Island collapsed, the society found on much smaller Tikopia Island (1.8 square miles) has existed for 3,000 years (and still exists) on an island with sustainable cultivation; the Greenland Norse ultimately failed while the Inuit on the same island still exist.

After an introduction of concepts - including a comparison with modern day Montana - Diamond analyzed in depth the collapse of several past societies, namely that of Easter Island, Pitcairn Island, Henderson Island (both islands are in the Pacific and formerly had Polynesian societies which died out), the Anasazi, the Classic Lowland Maya, and the Greenland Norse, the last of which he spent a great deal of time discussing and made for absolutely fascinating reading. More briefly he analyzed some past (and still existing) societies that overcame grave environmental crises (that of Iceland, Tikopia Island, the New Guinea highlands, and Japan of the Tokugawa era). To me these sections (around half the book) were the best part (I found lots of very interesting information in the Easter Island chapter).

Within the framework of these success stories he illustrated two contrasting approaches to environmental success, namely that of a bottom-up approach to a problem (one in which individuals in a society make choices and perform actions to correct environmental problems, as with Tikopia and the New Guinea highlands) and the top-down approach (found in large societies with a centralized political structure, such as Tokugawa Japan). Additionally, both bottom-up and top-down approaches may exist side by side.

Next, Diamond focused on several modern societies that face grave environmental problems today and in the future, specifically Rwanda, Haiti (which he contrasted vividly with the neighboring Dominican Republic), China, and Australia, going into a great deal of detail about their history, culture as it relates to the environment, current environmental problems, and what is being done (if anything) to correct these problems. I found the chapters on Haiti/Dominican Republic (another example he wrote that there is no such thing as environmental determinism) and Australia particularly interesting.

The fourth part of the book is a section he titled "practical lessons;" what analysis of collapses, success stories, and modern problems have taught us about what can be done. One thing he wrote is that he disliked single factor explanations for problems or single factor issues for activists to focus on. For instance, with the contrasting environmental realities of Haiti and the Dominican Republic, their differing developments were "overdetermined;" a number of separate factors coincided to produce the current reality. Another is that for a society to continue to exist at sustainable levels in a deteriorating environment (or for a Third World society to become a First World one), it must decide as a society which of its deeply held core values are compatible with its continued survival, which are not, and then give up those that are not. For instance the love for the farming lifestyle in Australia is a core value in Australia, but to continue having that as a core value may be incompatible with a healthy environment.

Diamond discussed in detail why societies fail to solve their environmental problems. Briefly, a civilization may fail to anticipate a problem before it arises, it may fail to perceive a problem after it does arrive, they may not even try to solve it, or they may try to solve it and fail. Regarding the second problem he made some interesting points about "creeping normalcy" (the difficulty in recognizing a gradual downward trend over years because what constitutes "normalcy" shifts "gradually and imperceptibly") and "landscape amnesia" (forgetting what a landscape looked like in the past because the downward change has been so gradual that residents in an area are less aware of it, comparing changes unconsciously to the last few years rather than say 50 years ago).

Diamond does close with saying he is cautiously optimistic that the world's environmental problems can be solved, providing examples of success stories and answering common "one-liner objections" to environmental policies. A truly excellent book, I highly recommend it.
... Read more

Editorial Review

•Why are lovers quicker to forgive their partners for infidelity than for leaving dirty dishes in the sink?•Why will sighted people pay more to avoid going blind than blind people will pay to regain their sight? •Why do dining companions insist on ordering different meals instead of getting what they really want? •Why do pigeons seem to have such excellent aim; why can’t we remember one song while listening to another; and why does the line at the grocery store always slow down the moment we join it?In this brilliant, witty, and accessible book, renowned Harvard psychologist Daniel Gilbert describes the foibles of imagination and illusions of foresight that cause each of us to misconceive our tomorrows and misestimate our satisfactions. Vividly bringing to life the latest scientific research in psychology, cognitive neuroscience, philosophy, and behavioral economics, Gilbert reveals what scientists have discovered about the uniquely human ability to imagine the future, and about our capacity to predict how much we will like it when we get there. With penetrating insight and sparkling prose, Gilbert explains why we seem to know so little about the hearts and minds of the people we are about to become. ... Read more

Reviews

A pretty happy read- but not as happy as you think it is going to be
Here are some of the most important points of this book:
1) We often exaggerate in imagining the long- term emotional effects certain events will have on us.
2) Most of us tend to have a basic level of happiness which we revert to eventually.
3) People generally err in imagining what will make them happy.
4) People tend to find ways of rationalizing unhappy outcomes so as to make them more acceptable to themselves.
5) People tend to repeat the same errors in imagining what will make them happy.
6) Events and outcomes which we dread may when they come about turn into new opportunities for happiness.
7) Many of the most productive and creative people are those who are continually unhappy with the world- and thus strive to change it.
8) Happiness is rarely as good as we imagine it to be, and rarely lasts as long as we think it will. The same mistaken expectations apply to unhappiness.

Gilbert makes these points and others with much anecdotal evidence and humor.

A pretty happy read, but not as happy as you think it is going to be.

Before you try to get happy, read this to get smart
I love a quote by Dr. Richard Feynman, the late Nobel Prize winning physicist: "The first principle is that you must not fool yourself - and you are the easiest person to fool". If you want to be happy, happy with your choices and the outcomes of your efforts you should buy and read this book to at least understand why you are pretty much hard-wired to break Dr. Feynman's first principle while you are trying to do so.

Until recently, when someone asked me "what do you want from life?" I would survey the myriad wishes and desires floating around in my mind and pull out some random musing to do with creating a family or making more money than I knew what to do with. I have certainly worked towards these things and had varying levels of success with love and career and material wealth. But I have always been baffled by why virtually nothing could make me happy in a lasting and predictable way. I am not baffled anymore, even though I am still unhappy in a lot of ways. "Stumbling on Happiness" has educated me to the ways that people exhibit self-delusion when looking forward to predict how happy some future experience will make them happy.

Gilbert is wickedly funny at times as he describes the mechanisms that lead us to distort our thinking; our projections about what will bring about our future selves happiness. This is the kind of information (why we're so deluded) I expected to get from the book. But he goes further and explains how we often don't even know how we feel in a particular moment and how we can have an *experience* of something, without it ever bubbling up into our conscious *awareness*. The onslaught of the information demonstrating the failures of human imagination in achieving contentment is a lot to take in... I felt myself a little depressed at my chances at choosing any future path that was any better than what I'd done up to this point.

But I came to a realization about what I'd learned here: if you are like me and are actively looking to increase your level of happiness, while this book is not directly practical in accomplishing that, it is an essential base upon which to evaluate other materials. Having this book as a counterpoint to other, more practical books (say in the field of Positive Psychology) will increase your chances of not fooling yourself (at least not as badly or for as long). And to be fair, he does offer one suggestion.

I heard about this book listening to an interview with him on the CBC Radio program 'Tapestry'. I highly recommend taking the 24 minutes to listen to that interview (Google: 'tapestry daniel gilbert' to listen online) if you want a preview of the fascinating content of the book.

This Too Will Pass
Mr. Gilbert has written a lively academic approach on the subjective subject of happiness. The reader looking for advice on how to manage their own lives will not find it here. Rather the author looks at the way people manage their own expectations of impending events and how they cope with anxiety. Many persons re-evaluate both stressful events in a more positive light (childbirth) and achieved goals in a less satisfactory fashion (buying that new car does not buy happiness). Ironically, clinically depressed persons see how how difficult life can be and have an inability to re-evaluate stressful situations. They lack this coping mechanism that other persons have : that both happiness and unhappiness will have their season and move on. For the reader desiring further reading on this topic, Dan McMahon's "Happiness: a History" takes a longer and more historical approach to how happiness has changed over the ages.

When I just get the (fill in the blank), then I'll be happy ...
I loved Dan Gilbert's Stumbling on Happiness. With a great sense of humor, Gilbert presents interesting studies and tests to explain why humans have difficulty determining what will make them happy. Gilbert's writing style kept me engaged throughout the entire book. His work brought clarity to my prior views on happiness, and provided me with keen insight into the function of the human mind. I especially enjoyed Gilbert confronting the reader with seemingly impossible scenarios, which challenge preconceived notions on happiness. For example, how can lottery winners and paraplegics have the same level of happiness one year after winning the lottery, or one year after the loss of one's legs?

While reading Stumbling on Happiness, I was reminded of two of my favorite books by Ariel and Shya Kane: Being Here: Modern Day Tales of Enlightenment and Working on Yourself Doesn't Work: A Book About Instantaneous Transformation. In Working on Yourself Doesn't Work, the Kanes assert that satisfaction, or well-being, is not dependent on the circumstances of one's life. Gilbert, in Stumbling on Happiness, lends support for the Kanes's view, by demonstrating that people are often very inaccurate when predicting their levels of happiness if certain circumstances were to occur. I recommend Stumbling on Happiness, Being Here, and Working on Yourself Doesn't Work, to anyone who is interested in discovering the human condition and how it relates to happiness, satisfaction and well-being.

Happiness is in the Small Things

This book confirms aspects about human personality that I have been interested in for some time. One of these things concerns our ability to delude ourselves ABOUT ourselves. For example, studies show that 90% of people think they are better than the average driver. Since 50% of drivers have to be in the bottom half, 4/5ths of that 50% must be mistaken about their skill level. Surveys taken amongst college students bear this out. Except for those who are depressed, they consistently vastly overestimated their good qualities and badly underestimated their poor ones - as judged by their peers. Perhaps the depressed ones are in the more realistic group.

One of my favorite quotes about the ability of people to delude themselves is from "The Moral Animal," by Robert Wright: "...humans are a species splendid in their array of moral equipment, tragic in their propensity to misuse it, and pathetic in their constitutional ignorance of the misuse."

A second interesting aspect about human personality concerns the nurture/nature contributions to personality. There is much evidence that genetics governs the biochemistry that controls a person's general outlook - perhaps realistically thought of as one's "happiness thermostat." Nurture, on the other hand, is judged much more influential about learned behaviors such as personal habits. This author shows and studies confirm that after good or bad life-changing events, people tend to eventually return to their inherent steady state level of happiness.

Aside from confirming some of my preconceptions, I did come away from this book with one new (renewed) valuable thought: That our general level of happiness on a day to day basis is more likely to suffer from nitpicky, seemingly insignificant irritants rather than how generally well off we are otherwise. Old saying such as "Don't sweat the small stuff," seems to hold up well here, as does, "Have the serenity to accept the things I can't change, the courage to change those I can, and the wisdom to know the difference."

It makes sense to try to realistically identify and change recurrent irritants - also to re-evaluate the things that one REALLY likes, and make the appropriate adjustments in lifestyle. Anyway, this is a highly readable, thought-provoking book; entertainingly disguised as psychology - first rate.

... Read more

Editorial Review

We're living in an epidemic of toxic emotions.

Research shows that as much as 87% to 95% of mental and physical illnesses are a direct result of toxic thinking-proof that our thoughts affect us physically and emotionally.

In this best-selling book, Dr. Caroline Leaf clearly communicates 13 ways to detox your thought life and live a life of physical, mental, and emotional wholeness.

Reviews

NOT DISSAPPOINTING !!!!!, December 5, 2009
One of the most important books on how our thoughts chemicially effect our behavior, personal diseases and the healing process. Dr. Leaf confirms through her accurate and solid neuroscience research what the Holy Bible has said for over 3,000 years "As a man or woman thinks, allowing their spirit, mind, will, emotions and body to absorb those thoughts and images, to that degree they will become (in their spirit, soul and body) what they have thought about". A must read book for serious and open-minded students and professionals.

Martin W. Oliver II Ph.D.
specializing in human behavior and chemistry
Meridian, Mississippi

Who knew?, November 5, 2009
Reading Dr. Leaf's book, I was amazed at how science lines up with scripture- proof that we really can renew our minds and break toxic habits and patterns in our lives. Breaking free from stress, for lasting change. A message of freedom and hope. Loved it.

BOOK ABOUT THINKING, November 17, 2009
A MUST READ FOR EVERYONE WHO WANTS TO CHANGE THEIR THINKING AND HOW TO INPROVE YOUR LIFE. WOW!!!WOW!!!

Lifesaver, March 22, 2010
I recently experienced a panic attack crisis in my life that was almost completely dibilitating. I went through the 13 steps to controlling toxic thoughts and emotions found in Dr. Leaf's book and consider them a big part of helping to pull me out of a terror filled situation. I recommend this book to anyone who is serious about taking control of their thought life and living free from tormenting emotions.

Amazing!, November 5, 2009
I was looking for some simple answers. Dr Leaf explains in simple terms complex Brain Science and related issues. Now I can understand what happens to my thinking. In addition, working through her practical steps has really helped me to get a handle on thoughts that sometimes can drive one almost crazy!

Therapist Recommends This Book, March 26, 2010
I am a clinical social worker in private practice. I highly recommend this book. In fact, I usually recommend this book to all of my clients.

Disappointed in this book, December 19, 2009
I saw Dr. Leaf on the Joyce Meyer show and then bought the book. I was hoping the book would be full of practical steps to detoxing toxic thoughts, but only 1 chapter is devoted to the steps and honestly I think there should have been more about the application of the steps.

A Truly Insightful Book, February 27, 2010
I won't make this long, but suffice it to say, the contents of this book is cutting edge. I've always believed that our thoughts and emotions affect our bodies either for good or ill, and the Bible supports this belief. I'm gratified to see that medical science is finally catching up with what the Bible has been saying all along. Thank you, Dr. Leaf, for making this information available to everyone.

Lifechanging, May 28, 2010
This book is fairly easy to read and understand. Reviewing thoughts, especially toxic ones, and changing them is very freeing. "Who Switched Off My Brain" is an absolute must read.

Excellent and inspirational advice, March 8, 2010
If you suffer from anxiety or a deep fear, you are not alone; this is a part of the human condition. But we don't have to suffer endlessly because anxiety has an internal structure in the form of negative thoughts and beliefs powered by emotional energy that has become frozen in place. Uncover these patterns of negative thoughts and you are on the way to making significant change. As a mindfulness-based psychotherapist, I use mindfulness as the primary tool for doing just this, and I would recommend anyone to learn more about the therapeutic use of mindfulness in conjunction with good self-analysis. I also recommend 'The Path of Mindfulness Meditation' available through Amazon. ... Read more

Editorial Review

• argues that language is not a requirement for consciousness--and that animals do have consciousness
• applies the autism theory of "hyper-specificity" to animals, showing that animals and autistic people are so sensitive to detail that they "can't see the forest for the trees"--a talent as well as a "deficit"
• explores the "interpreter" in the normal human brain that filters out detail, leaving people blind to much of the reality that surrounds them--a reality animals and autistic people see, sometimes all too clearly
• explains how animals have "superhuman" skills: animals have animal genius
• compares animals to autistic savants, declaring that animals may in fact be autistic savants, with special forms of genius that normal people do not possess and sometimes cannot even see
• examines how humans and animals use their emotions to think, to decide, and even to predict the future 
• reveals the remarkable abilities of handicapped people and animals 
• maintains that the single worst thing you can do to an animal is to make it feel afraid
  
  
  

Reviews

Fascinating and delightful read, January 21, 2005
I savored every moment of reading this book. Grandin has an enthusiasm for her subject that she combines with endless quantities of fascinating research and observations about animals. The book isn't exactly what I expected - I thought it would focus more on her own interactions with animals. However, because the book is so engagingly written and the information is so interesting, the difference between what I expected and what I got didn't diminish my enjoyment in the least.

Grandin does a much better job of making the scientific information more interesting and less dry than in her previous book, Thinking in Pictures, which contained long passages about medications that could be used to treat autistic people. I found that book to be much more uneven. Animals in Translation, however, held on to my attention from the first page to the last. While she also includes a generous amount of scientific information in this book, it is all so interesting and sometimes surprising, that I was never bored. If you have pets or are simply interested in animals and/or biology, this is a must-read.

A novel look at animal behavior, but with room for improvement., August 27, 2006
What author Temple Grandin has attempted to do here is to use her own experiences as an autistic person to gain insight into the way animals perceive and react to the world around them. She explains that autism seems to impair the ability of the neocortex, or frontal lobes of the brain, to obtain and process information, and that animals likewise have less well-developed frontal lobes than normal humans do. Her theory is that the impairment of an autistic person's brain, in essence, makes them far closer to other animals than to non-autistic humans in how they view the world. As a result, Grandin has largely been able to help people better relate to their pets, and also to design more humane slaughterhouse equipment and more effective auditing procedures for slaughter facilities.

The book starts off well, with Grandin offering many insights that show that, in some ways, she really does have a better understanding of animal perception and thought than "normal" humans. Her principle examples revolve around the fact that animals, like autistic people, are detail-oriented. Their inability to generalize and see the "big picture" often leads to fixations on small things that the average person would not notice. Grandin illustrates this with stories from her inspections of meat plants, where something as simple as an abrupt change in lighting, or a reflection on a puddle - things which have entirely escaped the plant operators' notice - have been causing cattle to balk and refuse to go where they are being directed. She goes on to explain exactly why these details, which don't seem like much of a reason to be afraid, are so disturbing to the animals. Her observations, while not things that would immediately jump out at most people, make a lot of sense once she has explained them. Grandin also includes a useful checklist of things to look for when trying to determine what may be frightening an animal.

However, there are also some not-so-positive aspects to the book. In many places Grandin deviates from her theme of using autism to understand animals, and starts making speculations that not only have no connection to autism, but which seem to have little to back them up at all beyond the author's own opinions. She uses phrases like "statistics have shown" but then fails to elaborate on these supposedly evidential statistics, giving no information on who collected the information, when the study was done, or how large of a sample was used. This particularly comes into play when she discusses pit bulls - a topic she turns to repeatedly throughout the book. Grandin makes no attempt to hide her great distaste for pit bulls (she does not specify whether she is referring to American Pit Bull Terriers in particular, or all of the various breeds that fall under the generic "pit bull" label) and also Rottweilers, German Shepherds, and Chows.

In addition, Grandin puts forth some opinions on dog training that range from strange to absurd. Two things in particular caught my attention. First, she strongly advocates the outdated "alpha" theory for establishing dominance over one's dog. And secondly, I found myself greatly puzzled when she posed her theory that leash laws result in undersocialized dogs. She goes on to reminisce about how, when she was a child, dogs in her neighborhood were allowed to roam free, and that there were rarely any fights. Perhaps this was the case in her neighborhood, but in most places allowing one's dogs to roam free without supervision poses many risks. And leash laws in no way prevent a dog from being well socialized - they just require that a dog owner take an active role in introducing their pets to other animals and humans.

Finally, I was slightly dismayed with Grandin's writing style itself, though I'm not sure whether this is just a lack of writing skill, or a by-product of her autism. Grandin is obviously well-educated and experienced, but the text felt more like a junior high research report with a lot of scientific words thrown in. She often uses the same phrases repetitively, and also uses juvenalized terms for some things. However, the author does admit that written language does not come naturally to her, and that she often draws on a collection of "stock phrases" to communicate, which is what makes me wonder if this aspect of the writing is actually due to the nature of her autism. However, she also makes the mistake of repeatedly using terms like "I believe" or "my opinion is" when putting forth her theories. While these theories obviously ARE her ideas, making statements of the "I think" variety in scientific writing makes the arguments sound weaker, especially when she fails to back up her claims with research or other evidence. Many times she simply concludes an argument with the statement "and I can prove it!" but then fails to go on to give actual proof.

On the whole, the book is a bit of a mixed bag. Though my previous three paragraphs focused on things I found disappointing, I do not mean to give the impression that Grandin's work is all bad. It's certainly not. She does have a lot of good insights, and when she backs up her assertions with specific evidence, her ideas are quite fascinating. I particularly enjoyed the beginning of the book, where she explains the differences in detail-perception between animals, autistic people, and non-autistic people, and also the sections devoted to animal language / communication, and the co-evolution of dogs and humans. In the end I would probably still recommend Grandin's book to readers, with the provision that one should take a slightly hesitant approach in deciding which of her arguments should be readily accepted, and which need further proof.

2 1/2 stars, because it is half a good book, September 16, 2006
When the author focuses on what she knows - autism, neurobiology, and domestic livestock - this book offers many insights. By applying some excellent existing research in neurobiology about what animals are truly capable of perceiving and feeling (read some of the referenced books for confirmation of emotions in animals) and applying her own experiences with domestic livestock and insights founded in her autism (a much more visual world than "normal" people (her word, not mine)), Dr. Grandin shows how a more visual, detail-oriented animal encounters the world.

Sadly, Dr. Grandin - perhaps wanting to appeal to a wider audience - tries also to include predator species such as our companion dogs and cats in her book. Her lack of direct experience with predator species is palpable in everything she writes about them. Her data sources are extremely outdated(Monks of New Skete, anyone?) and her own discussions are highly anecdotal ("my neighbor's dog..." "my childhood cat..."). Her word choices reveal her discomfort with the subject matter (much use of terms such as "probably" "pretty much" "nobody knows why"). Nor does she make any effort to validate her suppositions. Her "Troubleshooting" chapter should be avoided like the plague (recommending a shock collar for chasing behavior can create aggression, as the dog learns to associate the chase object with pain).

If you read this book, take it with a grain of salt and by no means use it as your only reference. Her own references are excellent and can be used for further study. Also, for those interested primarily in dogs, Patricia McConnell has an exceptional new book, For the Love of a Dog, that is grounded in more recent data and a lifetime of working with dogs.

New Insights, The Same Old Same-Old, Or Both?, August 14, 2005

Let me just say up front that this is a wonderful book in many ways, and offers a unique, and in most cases, accurate view of animal consciousness. My own area of expertise is canine behavior, so I was really looking forward to Temple Grandin's perspective on that. She's absolutely right when she says that animals are specifically geared toward perceiving vivid sensory details rather than the way the human brain tends to automatically generalize things and gather such details into conceptual, symbolic, or "meaningful" chunks.

I hope all dog owners will read this book and finally realize that their dogs are both "smarter" and not quite as smart as they thought they were. I tell my dog training clients that dogs are natural-born geniuses at pattern recognition--which goes beyond the sense of smell, by the way, which Grandin focuses on, and includes visual data (body language) and aural input (vocalizations)--but that they're innately incapable of symbolic, conceptual, or linguistic thought processes.

So imagine my disappointment when instead of continuing to break new ground, Grandin and her co-author trot out the washed-up alpha theory* with most, if not all, of its attendant fallacies firmly in place. Just where I was hoping to get her unique perspective on something truly important (at least to me and the dogs I train), her insight fails her and she falls back on old, outdated, and thoroughly discredited research.

This is maddening since her views on aggression are semi-accurate (most aggression in dogs IS based on fear). But how can she believe in this myth of alpha, especially since she's put forth the position that animals aren't capable of symbolic and conceptual thinking, and for the alpha theory to be true it would require dogs and wolves to be able to think this way?

Let me make another thing clear: dogs are not inherently dangerous! They are genetically programmed to want to attain a state of harmony with other dogs and with people. It's what they live for. In fact, this is what the pack instinct is really about since it's what enables canids to hunt large prey, by working together in group harmony. The primary thing that makes dogs dangerous is the way they've been mistreated by people who've been brainwashed about having to be the dog's pack leader, which has been woefully misused in many cases as an excuse to hurt, scare, intimidate, and punish these innately loving and sweet-natured animals... (whew! -- glad I got that off my chest...)

Anyway, that's why I'm only giving this book three stars. Grandin has done good work, at least partially. We should all be thankful for her insights and her unique perspective. Just ignore most of what she says about canine social behavior.

*Wolf experts don't even like to use the word alpha anymore because, as Dr. L. David Mech puts it, "it falsely implies a hierarchical system in which each wolf assumes a place in a linear pecking order," (Canadian Journal of Zoology, 2002).

Landmark book., March 12, 2005
Animals in Translation: Using the mysteries of autism to decode animal behavior.
I will never think about animals, and about autism, and about "normal" people quite the same way again. This is a landmark book.

The book is badly organized. You will have to read every page. You may not be interested in the long pages where she talks about slaughter houses, but then right in the middle of a paragraph you suddenly come across a bit of wisdom that you would not want to have missed. Right then you must underline it or you will never find it back again.

The upshot of this book is that animals do not have a fully functioning frontal lobe, nor do autistic people, and she tells us throughout the book what that is like, over and over again until you start to get a deep understanding of what it is like. We get a better understanding of ourselves too. The frontal lobe "puts it all together", and having put it all together, we race over the details like a speed boat over water. We do not see the details. An autistic person on the other hand, can not help but see them. He sees all the details, and only the details. He is overwhelmed by them. He sees all forty shades of brown. He can not see the forest for the trees, and more trees, and more trees. He hears every tone. He smells every odor. His life is a jumble of details. As you might expect, her book is rich in details about her own life and about all the animals she knows and when you emerge at the other end of the book, you feel immersed. Being a "normal" person you can not remember all the details, but you "know" something about these people's lives, and about animals' lives in a way you could never get from a text book. And yet, at the same time, she also has a doctorate and she does her own research. She has the training to write the text book, but then, being autistic, she can not. She does not hold the whole picture and therefore it remains a badly organized book. That is the message. That is what it is like to be autistic. That is what it is like to be an animal.

Nicholas Dormaar
British Columbia, Canada.

fascinating, February 1, 2005
I am a wildlife rehabilitator and do a good deal of reading about animals and their needs/behavior etc. 'Animals in Translation' is the most facinating book on animals that I've ever come across. It includes examples of wildlife as well as domestic and farm animals. It's beautifully written and the author makes very complicated information completely comprehensible to the non scientific person. In her book, Ms Grandin has opened the door to the mysteries of the animal kingdom and in doing so, made us wiser to their plight of living amongst humans. This book has answered many questions and given me a whole new perspective on our furry friends. Anyone who is curious about animals, has a pet or works with animals, should be reading the material written in this book.

not quite as wonderful as I'd been led to believe, March 28, 2005
I was interested in this book as a dog trainer, hoping to acquire insights into dog behavior. Unlike some other reviewers, I am also happy to read about autism and the meat packing industry as well. On those subjects I am incompetent to judge. However, as far as dogs go, Ms. Grandin has nothing on truly observant experienced dog trainers. She makes wild generalizations I know are not supported by evidence ("all Labs are like x"; "wolflike-appearing breeds are actually more wolflike in behavior"; "white dogs are crazy", etc.) Her ideas about dogs might be taken as remarkable by the complete novice to the subject--which is most people--but are no news to anyone who has been around the block, except where they are apparently inventions of her own.
She could be way cool on the other subjects she touches on. She has a very accessible style of writing, possibly attributable to her co-author.
If you want an understanding of dog behavior, try the classic "Culture Clash" by Jean Donaldson.

Inspirational and revealing...., April 19, 2006
I bought this book because I have a special relationship with my dog and was attracted to the topic offered.

I got much more than I expected and I am a new devotee of Ms. Grandin and her writing. I am not autistic, however after reading Ms. Grandin's book I recognize that I have autistic tendencies; that is some of the ways of autistic thinking that Ms. Grandin describes in this book are the same as mine, causing me to believe that there are just degrees of autism. I always thought that I was missing something in life; I couldn't understand how other people did things so easily and I could not; how other people seemed to handle people and situations with ease and I could not. In my family there are several members with ADD or Obsessive Compulsive Disorder and being able to find a connection between those things and my thinking was nothing short of miraculous. I have learned to embrace my different thinking and be able to understand how others think differently and I have found strength in that and can offer my strengths instead of focusing on my weaknesses.

In addition, I have a new appreciation for my dog and feel that I can relate to her and her needs much more effectively than before reading the book.

I think that this book should be required reading in school and I am it's new champion on the street; I tell everyone I meet with a dog about this book and I have told my friends and family. I think about it's themes almost every day, thinking in pictures, compression, abstract thinking versus reality and I hope to get as many people to read it as possible and spread the word.

I thank Ms. Grandin for putting herself out there in such a personal and understandable way.

The only thing that I can say as a negative, the reason for my four stars, is that Ms. Grandin's writing style is sometimes repetitive and jerky. Despite that, I couldn't put it down until I was finished reading it.

Divide the science from opinion., November 24, 2005
This is the fourth co-authored book featuring Temple Grandin as one of the authors, here together with Catherine Johnson, the author of 'Shadow Syndromes' and its an interesting combination of authors who have come together on this book.

One of the myths Temple Grandin, perhaps unintentionally, busts in this book is the view that people on the autistic spectrum are not interested in other minds.

As a person labelled in infancy as autistic and rediagnosed in adulthood with Asperger's Syndrome, Temple displays an intense, obsessive observation of detail of her animal subjects which, whilst its not the work of a zoologist specialising in animal psychology, her contribution to this book comes from the heart of Temple's work as an engineer renowned for designing humane slaughter facilities for cattle.

Already emerging as a clearly scientific mind in childhood, Temple is clearly the born scientist and here she turns that scientific mind to the study of animals, in particular perhaps those she has the most experience with, cattle and extrapolating many of those experiences to dogs and other animals.

Whilst humans may fastidiously study animals to the degree they imagine or believe they know how they think, doesn't necessarily follow, however, that this is so.

Whilst Temple thinks in pictures rather than in words, visually rather than auditorily, this doesn't necessarily mean that animals think this way even if, like her, as a scientist, they notice and react to detail. If a water bowl is placed on the ground for a new dog, it doesn't necessarily recognise what it is, even if its seen 20 water bowls. But if you tap the bowl or flick the surface of the water it comes running to the bowl. Does the cat which has already had 10 similar toys, know what the new toy is visually until it taps it and smells it? Hence, is this visual thinking or is it kinesthetic in which the animal can't interpret things once they are moving, making noise or somehow in action? Whilst those in educational psychology would use awareness of three main modalities of processing; auditory, visual and kinesthetic, Temple seems to have little grasp that there is as vast a difference between the visual and kinesthetic worlds of processing as their are between the visual and auditory.

Whilst not all people on the autistic spectrum have deeply scientific minds (for this is a common stereotype) nor think in pictures, it may true that humans have lost a valuable piece of understanding and key to empathising which they can find through connection with animals, or perhaps, more to the point, that animals retain a 'system of sensing' as captured in Donna Williams' (another autistic author) book, Autism And Sensing; The Unlost Instinct (1998). If this is so, then where Donna suggests we re-discover our capacity to use this kinesthetic system of sensing that we lost in moving into using our interpretive minds and language, then here Temple shows us that scientific minds of verbal people which rely on interpretive thinking (whether visual or auditory) may find a pathway to re-discovering this system of sensing through relationships with animals.

Studying animals as a scientist is a different way of grasping their world than that of feeling their systems and nature through being with them without analysing them. What Temple shows us in this book is that even the most clinical, logical, emotionally detached and scientific of minds can attempt to build a capacity for empathic understanding and put that into occupational uses, in Temple's particular case, within the slaughter industry.

Very interesting on animal behavior, but not much about autism, February 16, 2006
This book has a great idea at its core, but the authors don't really pull it off. "Using autism to understand animal behavior" would be very interesting, but that would imply a much more thorough discussion of autism than this book provides. Unfortunately, the book will go twenty or thirty pages at a time without even mentioning the word "autism," much less discussing it seriously. Chapter 4 on aggression does not contain the word "autism" and several other chapters mention it only at the start or end of the chapter. However, the conclusion does tie together the themes of autism and animal behavior, though it's really about animal talents.

Instead, this book is mostly about Temple Grandin's personal insights into animal behavior. These are interesting. She is autistic, and the first, autobiographical chapter explains how she learned that it gave her a different perspective into animals. She is also a professor of animal behavior and draws extensively on the scientific literature. Despite the use of science, the book is very easy to read; in fact, it's written at about a 9th grade level.

The core idea is that animals, like autistic people, tend to think in pictures. They are also much more sensitive to detail and generalize less widely than typical people. Grandin makes these claims plausible and interesting. I learned why my dog will walk through one of our doors in only one direction, for example.

Much of Grandin's career has involved the behavior of livestock. Some animal lovers will not like her discussion of humane slaughtering methods, and will not be impressed that she works with McDonald's and Wendy's to improve the life quality of cattle that grows up to be hamburgers. She talks about her own feelings on this issue a little, but it would be good to have more.

In addition to livestock, she discusses the behavior of other domestic animals, mostly dogs and cats. Sometimes she extrapolates to wild animals but I'm not very confident about what she says there, as some of her claims about wolves are flatly contradicted by the literature.

You may have noticed that my review says Temple Grandin this or that, though the book is co-authored. They wrote the entire book in the first person *singular*, and whenever the authors say "I," they clearly mean the first author. I found this repeatedly odd but it doesn't really affect the quality of the book.

Those weaknesses aside, this is a very interesting book about the behavior of domestic animals and livestock. I understand some of my dog's quirks better now. But if you're looking for insights into autism, you'll be disappointed. ... Read more

Editorial Review

Developed by two master clinicians with extensive experience in cognitive therapy treatment and training, this popular workbook shows readers how to improve their lives using cognitive therapy/m-/one of the most effective and widely practiced forms of psychotherapy. The book is designed to be used alone or in conjunction with professional treatment. Step-by-step worksheets teach specific skills that have helped thousands of people conquer depression, panic attacks, anxiety, anger, guilt, shame, low self-esteem, eating disorders, substance abuse and relationship problems. Readers learn to use mood questionnaires to identify, rate, and track changes in feelings; change the thoughts that contribute to problems; follow step-by-step strategies to improve moods; and take action to improve daily living and relationships. The book's large-size format and lay-flat binding facilitate reading and writing ease.
... Read more

Reviews

excellent introduction to CBT, April 16, 2003
I've used this workbook successfully as a therapist at a community mental health clinic serving poorer clients in Tucson AZ. I've used it in individual and group therapy. Frankly, I've found "Mind Over Mood" much more user-friendly than the more popular "Feeling Good Handbook" by David Burns, which contains similar cognitive therapy methods. The "thought record" chart, in particular--the heart of CBT--is more straightforward in Mind Over Mood. They've set up seven intuitive columns, from left to right. Burns's version of this chart, where each situation and emotion is listed separately at the top of the page, tends to confuse people, in my experience.

I really like the way Greenberger and Padesky put in little hint questions in small type at the bottom of the columns, to remind you what you're supposed to be doing without having to go back and read the text. And the book is full of terrific hint boxes which give you questions to ask yourself if you're having trouble understanding the exercises. I have not seen this anywhere else.

Defects? 1) This book doesn't contain the richness of material of the Burns or other CBT workbooks. The chapters on specific conditions at the end are pretty paltry. It's really just a very large book on how to do a thought record. 2) The authors limit evaluating automatic thoughts to "evidence for", "evidence against", and a "reasonable alternative". This rigid empirical model is not suited to everyone or every situation. Surprisingly, there is no discussion of or columns for "cognitive distortions" (Burns) or "disputes" (Ellis). This is a major defect, but one can work around it by expanding what is allowed in the "evidence against" columns.

Overall though, an excellent book for use in clinical settings with general mental health patients. I find myself pulling it out much more often than my other CBT books sitting next to it on my shelf. Once clients get the hang of cognitive therapy, I introduce more sophisticated material; but I haven't found a better starting point.

powerful, easy tools conquer depression/anxiety, October 13, 2004
After years in therapy and various methods (Freudian, Jungian, etc.), it was finally Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) that helped me stop the negative, worrying (a facet of anxiety) voices that blared incessantly in my mind.

I can not recommend this book enough. Its simple exercises will have you seeing the fallacy of your thoughts, which are what determine your mood. The book (and CBT's) superbly simplistic idea is that your THOUGHTS are what control your MOODS. Control your thoughts, and you control your moods. But before we can do this, we have to slow down enough to take the time to see where our thoughts are coming from. This book and its exercises help us find where we are simply WRONG in the thoughts we have about ourselves which lead to depressed or anxious mood.

These exercises will help you determine your "hot thoughts," (automatic thoughts you hold about yourself that are linked to depressed/anxious mood), will help you examine evidence for and against your thoughts, and then help you use this evidence to create NEW THOUGHTS which ought to in turn help you create NEW MOODS.

These techniques are amazingly simple but also incredibly powerful. If you feel stuck in "talk therapy" analysis and can not seem to change the way you think about yourself, this book is for you! However, you should also seek a trained COGNITIVE BEHAVIORAL THERAPIST to teach you the techniques to literally CHANGE your thought process.

Anxiety and depression are more and more common in our society, and much of what causes these mood disturbances is our incorrect/unfounded thoughts about ourselves. Once we learn to manage our thoughts, we learn to change our mood. This book and what it teaches is life-changing.

Thinking clearly, feeling better -- it works!, July 17, 1999
Depression descends like a veil separating the person from the processes of life and creating a dark closet where videotapes of pain experienced and hope lost play continuously. Turning off the mind videos, transitioning from sad to ok, sleeping and eating on a regular schedule, moving from self-criticism to self-acceptance can be difficult on the best of days. Mind Over Mood provides insightful narratives relating the experiences of others to the experiences I was feeling - I could begin to see the authors' cast of characters in my own mirror and begin healing with them. But more than that, Mind Over Mood contributes hands on tools that have started a process of discovery about how I think, what I'm feeling, how I react and how to chart a balanced life course.

Drs. Greenberger and Padesky are acclaimed in the book's foreword by Aaron T. Beck, the pioneer of cognitive therapy, for their "vision and innovation" as well as their abilities to teach what they practice. It is probable, however, that their contributions to the lives of their readers will be documented as their greatest success. Acknowledging that "emotions generally enrich our lives, (but) too much emotion can be disruptive", the authors provide a framework to sort automatic thoughts and core beliefs about ourselves, others and the world. Mind Over Mood's worksheets prompt insights in the first chapter at the first reading and guide the reader to developing introspective and comprehensive perspectives about seemingly modest predicaments as well as significant events. Their approach is empathetic and their tools are practical as they help all of us enhance our mental flexibility.

As parents struggle to develop well-rounded children, as teachers challenge students to not only think creatively but to think in balanced ways, as managers try to impart emotional intelligence to create agile workers, Mind Over Mood offers an approach appropriate for multiple forums and principles central to improving the quality of all lives. No book is a substitute for the guidance of a qualified and understanding therapist in crisis situations. However, Mind Over Mood clearly provides tools to identify and organize thoughts and moods to feel better and to set action plans that challenge our assumptions, reduce distorted thinking, and establish a solid platform for personal growth and improved relationships. In more basic terms, Mind Over Mood continues to work for me - I carry the concepts with me everyday. I would wish the same comfort for you and your family.

Do the exercises if you want REAL INNER PEACE, September 24, 2005
Hey guys,

I've NEVER EVER written a review in my life for a book or anything before. I wasn't about to start but after seeing that 1 star from that "Helen" fellow; I had to jump in. It's people like that who expect a magic pill type "Silver Bullet" INSTANT CURE that give everyone else false hopes.

Therapy is hard. Your negative and distorted thoughts cause your suffering. To be "CURED" you have to learn to talk back to your negative thoughts. Talking back to your negative thoughts is hard and painful at times.

At some point, you are going to have to make peace with all the anger, hostility, anxiety, resentment, worthlessness, guilt, shame, hopelessness by bringing those POWERFUL emotions into your conscious awareness. If it was easy, everyone would be able to do it on their own and Therapists would be out of work.

Here's what's worked for me. I used this "WORK"book in conjunction with the the following
1. 10 days to self-esteem by David Burns
2. The feeling good handbook by David Burns

Using those 3 books for about 4 months on my own I would say, I saw about a 40% imporvement. When I got all I could out of these books on my own, I sought the help of a competent therapist.

[...]

If you live far away, you may have to travel a little bit. I live about 2 hours from philly and so I have to put aside 5 to 6 hours every week. 5 hours travel time and 1 hour for the therapy session. Your situation may be better/worse than mine but if I can do it, so can you. YOU HAVE OPTIONS !!!

BUT, EVERYTHING HAS A PRICE. If you do the exercies, you will see results. I GUARANTEE YOU. Get this book first and do the exercies. Then get the other two books that I mentioned above. After you get everything out of them that you can, move on to the next level. One of the biggest things that therapists struggle with is patients with conflicting drives. On one level, they want to change but on another level they don't.

If you do the exercises in these books, and if you still need additional help/coaching; when you do go to see a therapist, you will progress at a ridiculous speed (6 months max) simply because you'll already understand the basics and that extra nudge from a caring and competent professional will put you over the top. There won't be anything slowing you down.

Hope this helps and above all, KEEP YOUR EXPECTATIONS REALISTIC.

For those who want to actively work at healthier thinking, November 16, 1999
This book came recommeded by a counselor I hold in high regard. It has been beneficial to me and I highly recommend it to anyone who wants to actively work at having a healthier outlook on life and bettering their relationship with others, the workplace and, above all, themselves.

A Pearl, June 25, 2001
Authors Greenberger and Padesky in their Prologue use the analogy of an oyster creating a pearl out of a grain of sand. In response to an irritation, the oyster encases the particle in a smooth, protective coating, thus providing itself both relief and a thing of value. So too this book will assist anyone with a mood disorder to create relief and their own emotional pearl.

This cognitive workbook helps the anxiety sufferer alleviate mood problems as well as reduce stress, solve problems, and improve self-esteem. It does this by helping the reader identify thoughts, moods, behaviors, and physiological reactions; test usefulness of those responses; and change thinking patterns which are ineffective or dysfunctional.

However, because there is less information on how cognitions, emotions, behaviors, and physiological reactions relate to anxiety or depression than might be useful for greater self-understanding, I think this good book is, in many instances, better as an adjunct to psychotherapy than as a strictly self-help vehicle.

A "Mixed Bag", September 27, 2005
While I found this book helpful in understanding more about depression and anxiety, the "self-analysis" techniques it recommends are much too complicated. It attempts to classify and quantify intangibles such as moods and feelings to an impossible degree. For example, it divides moods into 25+ categories such as mad, happy, cheerful, angry, disgusted, panicky, etc. The problem here is defining the exact nature of a mood. Does "mad" or "disgusted" mean the same thing to everyone? Where does "mad" end and "angry" start? Can we really place a mood into a specific "box" that has precisely defined boundaries? Next, it attempts to rate the degree of each of these moods into a numerical scale ranging from 0 to 100. In other words, how much is "mad" is in our "mad" box"? While this approach to the problem may give it the appearance of "science", it is more akin to becoming excruciatingly exact about gross approximations.
The next question is whether the person afflicted with either depression or anxiety can actually view his/her situation impartially from the outside looking in? Highly doubtful! Most likely, the sufferer is "standing too close to the trees to see the forest". Finally, the sheer volume of record keeping suggested by the author is overwhelming. This may work for some, but in my case it simply aggravates my frustration which in turn elevates my anxiety level.
While some of these techniques may prove helpful to professionals and possibly to certain individual cases, they have not been helpful to me. Sorry, but the best I can do is give it the benefit of the doubt with a mid-range rating.

A Must for Depressives, February 27, 1999
Together with a counsellor, this book did very well for me, getting me out of my depression in less than a month. Even without a counsellor, I think the book alone would have brought me back to real life and happiness. Health authorities with long waiting lists should hand this out while patients wait to see a shrink - then they might not need the shrink.

THE number one cognitive therapy book!, January 27, 2004
If there was ever a book that could change your life, this is one of them. It's so practical, insightful, intelligent, and useful. It has had a big influence on myself, and on my outlook on life. I love the way the authors (Dr's Greenberger and Padesky) use complete and incomplete thought records to "teach" the reader how to do it for him/herself. It has truly been of great help to me in recognizing my own patterns of distorted thinking as well as the "alternative/balanced" thinking which has helped to improve my mood on several occasions. I consider it one of those rare gems that helps the reader to "see the light" (as a true friend would) without forcing it upon him/her.

Excellent for overcoming depression, November 3, 2005
I cannot recommend this book highly enough. Together with medication, the exercises in Mind Over Mood helped me recover from severe depression. They teach you to recognise unhelpful thoughts you have about yourself or others and challenge them, which has a big impact on mood. There are also chapters on making action plans, dealing with guilt and shame, monitoring your progress, and tackling deep-seated beliefs. I began using this book in a therapy group, so it's hard to say how helpful it would be used purely as a self-help book, but the exercises are fairly simple and they do make a big difference. A "must buy" for anyone suffering from depression, anxiety disorders or perfectionism. ... Read more