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| Mapping the Mind | 
 enlarge | Author: Rita Carter
Publisher: University of California Press
Category: Book
List Price: $25.95
Buy New: $6.97
You Save: $18.98 (73%)
Buy New/Used from $6.97
Avg. Customer Rating:  (45 reviews)
Sales Rank: 57290
Languages: English (Original Language), English (Unknown), English (Published)
Media: Paperback
Edition: 1
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 224
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1.9
Dimensions (in): 10.3 x 7.7 x 0.6
ISBN: 0520224612
Dewey Decimal Number: 573
EAN: 9780520224612
ASIN: 0520224612
Publication Date: February 1, 2000
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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| Customer Reviews:
| Showing reviews 41-45 of 45 | | « PREV 1 ... | | |
 Fellow 'brain author', "The Care and Feeding of Your Brain" July 21, 1999
1 out of 5 found this review helpful
I LOVE THIS BOOK! Carter mixes great diagrams and pictures with understandable and well documented text. As a writer in the area of the brain, I look at all the books out there. This one, released about the same time as "The Care and Feeding of Your Brain", gives any reader great insight into how the brain works. I suggest my own book as a companion text for anyone interested in finding out more about how to specifically optimize the function (with herbs, suppliments, lifestyle, etc.) of that brain that Rita Carter has described so beautifully. All the best!...Kenneth Giuffre MD
 Neatly brings together recent info in neuroscience July 3, 1999
8 out of 9 found this review helpful
Great graphics, lacking only an overall drawing of the brain, since sections of the brain cited in the text never appear in visuals. The information in the book is well presented and informative. Even a cognitive scientist like myself can enjoy and learn. However, Carter occasionally makes the mistake that many scientists do: taking speculation and presenting it as fact. There is a great deal that we do not know and a good deal that we can never know, but rather than present these speculations as possibilities, too often scientists themselves (who should know better) use and proliferate them as facts. This is misleading. The reader may want to be cautious about trusting all the statements in the book.The text contains the usual case studies, a wonderful presentation on hallucinations (doppelgangers and ghostly presences) and another on memory and loss of memory. Though it is intriguing to find the idea of evolutionary survival presented, it is done in the traditional sense, explaining fear, violence, competition, and prejudice but neglecting the common sense idea that it is protectiveness, patience, compassion, respect and caring that would better ensure species survival. (Why do humans go against common sense?) The book seems rather traditionally male as a result. Though Carter has written a nice book, and it is worth the read, it seemed to me that she never pulled all the data into a whole picture, or rather person, and explained human behavior. Further, at the last, Carter decides that humans don't possess free will. This conclusion didn't follow from her data. For instance, she cites a decision-making area in the brain. Last I heard, making a decision in part is the exercise of free will. Certainly, some aspects of a decision are programmed into our brain (via genetics, experience/trauma, damage, disease, drug or alcohol abuse, simple distractions, emotional states/moods, or chemical imbalance) or forced by circumstances or external influences. On the other hand, having a choice, especially when one becomes creative or innovative, seems to be free will in action to me. Carter's conclusion seems precipitous. We are still probing neuro-secrets. It will be some time before we truly understand the workings of the brain, let alone bring the brain back into the body and study the entire system. It is far too early to take a centuries-long debate and forge a rapid conclusion. More time will tell. However, on the whole the book was informative and well-written. Carter should feel proud that she presented her subject so well. Better than most books, not exactly at the fundamental level, it takes a little concentration to follow through on all the neuroscience, but the effort is valuable. The tone of the book is neither dry nor too witty, nor does the author talk down to the audience, as some experts do. A pleasantly written book, a very good presentation of the subject.
A useful visual view of the brain and affect development June 15, 1999
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
I am ordering this book for our Library to support a postgraduate course in pastoral counselling. This course has an emphasis on self psychology and affect development. "Mapping the Mind" provides a visual view of the brain and brain development and explains the processes of the brain in language which is accessible to people with social science and humanities backgrounds. One of the subjects in our course is the Psychology of Religious Experience and includes some focus on affect development. "Mapping the Mind" offers physiological and neurological information and this which supports an understanding of affect and feelings.
Fascinating May 30, 1999
1 out of 3 found this review helpful
I've spent the last 3 weeks pestering my acquaintances with factoids from this wonderful book. From the alien hand to tasting words, this entire subject has a fascination for me; and starts to answer some of the big questions of life. How do I think? Why do I do the things I do? Who am I really? A person could base much of a life philosophy on this. Well written and not too technical, filled with case studies and anecdotes from around the world, this book gives great bang for the buck in the thought provoking category. The best thing about the book is the illustrations; whimsical works of art showing the brain and its workings in action. I'm especially fond of the diagram of the human body if it was shaped in proportion to the brain space used to feel its parts. I'm not giving this book 5 stars only because I thought it was reaching in places trying to attribute complicated thoughts and behaviors, like racism, to simple problems with the brain. Still very good for what it is.
Probably the best book ever written about the brain! March 7, 1999
7 out of 8 found this review helpful
The classic problem with books written about the brain is the immense complexity of the subject. Up until Mapping the Mind, the best that readers could hope for was a puzzling armada of medical plates, or a friendly, but equally puzzling, pen and ink sketch and an accompanying himalaya of text.At last, this difficulty is overcome in Mapping the Mind by accessible, lucid writing,and staggeringly beautiful illustrations, which, as anyone who ever had a brilliant teacher Intuitively knows, could only be done by someone who completely understands the subject. The illustrations are simply incredible. The alienation felt at reading overly mechanical, scientific books on one's own brain is immensely disappointing; after all, the subject matter was our own unexplored mind, in which we invested everything, yet from many a hopeful journey through these books we return as empty handed as we came. The pervading impression is that perhaps the brain is a dull, mechanical confusion after all, in which we were mistaken to be so curious. But after reading Mapping the Mind, it dawns that the understanding is not beyond grasping, and better, that the subject is now, to one's great relief, as fascinating, beautiful and full of wonder, as we knew it should be. The book is inspiring, a first, and is bound to be of interest to everyone. Probably the best book ever written on the brain!
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