John Davidson Books

Unbelievably inspiring. I challenge you to compare his reading with any one else's or your own in your head. He makes it alive. Not perfect, mind you. You'll find yourself suggesting to him in certain spots that he missed the meaning by putting some emphasis or other on the wrong words. Nevertheless, you know you couldn't do better overall. A real treasure.

Great for a long drive or while driving cross town in Manhattan. You can debate the issues of suffering with Milton in your head.

Sure do wish it were the whole work.

Contains extensive information in the introduction that is lends an understanding to anyone reading any of Milton's work. This particular version is very inexpensive, and contains everything one would need to understand PL. Excellent!

My review is of the library binding edition released by Buccaneer Books. It is a very plain and small volume which is wonderfully bound. It contains nothing but the poem itself (including the prose arguments) with the original spelling and punctuation. That means no notes, commentary, or introduction, so if you're looking for lots of in-text help, this isn't what you want. The Fowler, Hughes, or Norton editions are all laden with helpful material like that. But if you just want to experience Milton's masterpiece alone, this is a lovely edition. I found that the book could be purchased much more cheaply if I ordered directly from the publisher's website.

Milton in Paradise Lost unfurls a morning star banner heralding the cosmic story of the fall of angels and men in language eminently civil. I am sure that Homer and Dante were Milton's schoolmasters yet Milton almost exceeds them in the slendid language and poetry of this epic creation. Philip Pullman said "No one, not even Shakespeare, surpasses Milton in his command of the sound, the music, the weight and taste and texture of English words". This is a poem of majesty and sublime lyricism as in Milton's description of Mulciber falling: "from Morn
To Noon he fell, from Noon to dewy Eve, @@@+PARADISE LOST+@@@
A Summer's day; and with the setting Sun @@@+JOHN MILTON+@@@
Dropt from the Zenith like a falling Star".
Each book of Paradise Lost is introduced with an argument, or summary. These arguments were written by Milton and added because early readers had requested a guide to the poem. Milton's purpose in this masterpiece is to tell about the fall of man and justify God's ways to man. When the angels battle in heaven at one point they pull up mountains and hills and throw them at each other: "So Hills amid the Air encounterd Hills Hurl'd to and fro with jaculation dire, That under ground, they fought in dismal
shade." After their coup attempt in heaven Satan and the other rebel angels are lying stunned on a lake of fire. Satan rises from the lake and makes his way to the shore. He calls the other angels to do the same, and they assemble by and above the lake. Satan tells them that all is not lost and tries to cheer his followers. Led by Mammon and Mulciber, the fallen angels build their capital and palace Pandemonium. They decide to get at God through his new creation and Satan sets off on this mission. In reading Paradise Lost the poem reads the reader while being read. What I mean is that Milton lets his readers go awry in their affections and he corrects and instructs those misreadings as well as anticipates them. In this way the poem becomes a live text with meaning apprehended through the interplay between the peruser of the poem and the text itself. Milton allows the reader to subjectively question the justice of the current religious paradigm and then leads them back to the perspicacity of deity. Ultimately Paradise Lost is Milton's paean to a vast pattern in the universe, the disruption of that pattern by rebels, and the weaving of those rebellion threads back into an ever more beautiful tapestry.

This could be the only book you may need on the topic of public speaking. While the author, Jeff Davidson, says that he is no a speech coach, he certainly has vast experience as to what makes successful presentations and he lavishly shares his experiences, observations, and training with his readers. At $14 this is one of the best buys you will encounter.

If you speak at all in the course of your professional or private life, get this book. You can't help but become a better speaker with it. It is like a complete guide, reference book, and speaking coach rolled into one.

The book Public Speaking by Jeff Davidson, was written mostly for professional speakers and not necessarily for classroom use. Our professor did not approve of the book for college students. The information presented can be used as an example.

If you speak at all in the course of your professional or private life, get this book. You can't help but become a better speaker with it. It is like a complete guide, reference book, and speaking coach rolled into one.

The Complete Guide to Public Speaking is a complete guide. I was quite impressed with the array of topics covered in this book. There are almost fifty chapters in all! I didn't get this book because I am nervous in speaking. I got it because I want to be a better speaker than I am. I feel that with this book, I will be. There are really good chapters on getting prepared for a speech, dealing with the audience, and even handling what goes
on after your speech. The chapters progress in a very quential, logical fashion. There are lots of exhibits, charts, and helpful lists that the author uses himself in his career as a speaker. While I don't aspire to be a professional speaker, I think that anyone who wants to advance in their career recognizes at one time or another that you're going to have to do some kind of speaking. To that end, this book will help a great deal.

This is usually the third book you read in a Political Philosophy course after "The Republic" and the "Nichomachean Ethics".

Locke comes to an understanding of "society", "government", and "property", among a number of notions central to our way of life. Doing that, he's also justifying them, as they exist. He states better and more clearly than anyone else what it is we think these things are and why we should view them as good. I don't know if anyone is thought to have done these particular things any better. (I guess I'm saying that Hobbes, Rousseau, etc., did other things.)

Lots of good stuff written here on this. Just think it's worth pointing out that Locke's argument for man's leaving the state of nature and his argument for the establishment of property are notoriously inconsistent.

The "state of nature" is more rhetorical device or thought-experiment than historical description. Nonetheless, it is essential to the argument.

Oh well. Plato's dialogues often end in despair.

I wish more people knew political philosophy. It would raise the general level of discussion. People would spend less time monkeying demagogues, charlatans, and hucksters.

Good edition too.

John Locke (1632-1704) wrote "Second Treatise of Government" in 1690, it was the main political philosophical source that our "Founding Fathers" went to in writing the "Declaration of Independence" and in forming our government. I think you should know something of Locke to understand what influenced his thinking. His father was a small landowner, attorney, Puritan and his political sympathies were with the Cromwell Parliament. Like Hobbes, Locke attended Oxford Univ. and did not think much about the curriculum or his professors. Most of his education came from reading books in the Univ. library. Renee Descartes and Sir Isaac Newton's writings greatly influenced Locke. Like Hobbes, he took a tutoring job teaching the son of the 1st Earl of Shaftesbury, and traveled Europe. His friendship with the Earl was beneficial in obtaining government appointments. During the political unrest in England, (1679-83) he fled to Holland because his liberal notions put him at odds with the government.

Locke writes the "Second Treatise of Government" to justify the Revolt of 1688 and the ascension of William of Orange to the English throne. The book argues against two lines of absolutist ideas. The first is Sir Robert Filmer's "patriarchal theory of divine right of kings; secondly, Hobbes argument for the sovereign's absolute power in his book "Leviathan." Locke argues that government emanates from the people. Locke's treatise rests like other political writings on its interpretation of human nature. He sees our nature opposite the way Hobbes did, decent and not as selfish or competitive. Man is more inclined to join society through reason and not fear. Man prefers stability to change.

His very important contribution to "law of nature" theory was his bias toward individualism. In state of nature, before government, men were free independent, equal enjoying inalienable rights "chief among them being life, liberty, and property." Where have you read that before? Property rights receive much attention in this treatise. Locke argues that government based on consent of man can still preserve freedom independence and equality.

His political writing had immediate influence in the world and influenced our founding fathers in their struggle against tyranny. He is an excellent writer and his theories are easy to understand by the laymen. As a graduate student of political philosophy, I recommend if you have an interest in politics, philosophy, or government then you must read Locke's "Second Treatise of Government"

In his book, Second Treatise of Government, John Locke (1632 - 1704) writes that all humans are born equal with the same ability to reason for themselves, and because of this, government should have limitations to ensure that people are free from the arbitrary will of another person, according to the laws of nature. Government, in Locke's view, is a social contract between the people in control, and the people who submit to it.

The editor of this edition, C. B. Macpherson, gives a little background and overview in his introduction to this book. He writes that the book "was directed against the principles of Sir Robert Filmer, whose books, asserting the divine authority of kings and denying any right of resistance, were thought by Locke and his fellow Whigs to be too influential among the gentry to be left unchallenged by those who held that resistance to an arbitrary monarch might be justified." (p. viii)
Locke's book served as a philosophical justification for revolting against tyrannical monarchies in the Glorious Revolution and the American Revolution. His book was practically quoted in the Declaration of Independence.

Locke lays out his basis for government on the foundation that people are able to reason. Because of this, people have inherent freedoms or natural rights. Though he believed in reason, Locke was an empiricist, meaning he believed that all knowledge of the world comes from what our senses tell us. The mind starts as a "tabula rasa", latin for an empty slate. As soon as we are born, we immediately begin learning ideas. Thus, all the material for our knowledge of the world comes to us through sensations. Nevertheless, Locke had an unshakable faith in human reason. He believed that people do learn what is right and wrong, regardless of what they choose to do. Locke believed that faith in God, certain moral norms and understanding consequences were inherent in human reason. So, even though people acquire everything they know about the world through the senses, they are able to think for themselves and reason at a higher level about what they learn.

Locke presumed that there are universally recognized principles and that the consequences are practically scientific. He was greatly influenced by Isaac Newton (1647-1727) who wrote The Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy. Locke took the ideas that there were "natural laws" in science and tried to extend that to society.

Natural laws, or rights, in Locke's view, are obvious and learned through human reasoning, and apply to everyone. They are also called "self-evident," which appears in The Declaration of Independence. All humans are created equal, and Locke bases this idea on the golden rule, that people are to do to others as they would have others do to them. Natural equality is the basis of the first and most important "natural law" which is to care for one another. (p. 9) Locke believes that with or without government, there were universal natural rights.

Without government, people are unprotected from harm by other people. Where there is no government, people are free to do as they please, even to harm others. In this state, natural laws still apply, such as the right of people to protect themselves and seek reparation for injuries done to them. However, people are naturally inconsistent in executing punishments, because they have a propensity to act out of hate or revenge. Therefore, laws are necessary in a civil society to fairly arbitrate justice. The purpose of creating a civil society is to avoid major conflicts and keep peace.
Thus, civil government is a "contract" between people to regulate their affairs fairly. According to Locke's theories, people enter into a social contract by forming governments that will preserve order.

Locke describes a civil government as being democratic with some checks to ensure that it does not overstep its boundaries, and having both legislative and executive powers. A civil government is democratic or representative, meaning laws are created by the consent of the people through the voice of a majority vote. The legislature should represent the people equally based on population. (Salus populi suprema lex) All people are subject to the law, including the rulers-no one is above the law. Even the legislature needs "standing rules" to keep it from over-stepping its boundaries. Locke advocated the principle of division of powers. Because the legislature only meets at appointed times to create or revise laws, there needs to be an executive power that is constantly enforcing the laws. So Locke describes a division of the legislative and executive powers.

In contrast to what was being claimed by the rulers of the time, Locke taught that the purpose of government is to serve and benefit the people and that it should be controlled by the people for which the government was made. His claim that people have the right to rebel against government was controversial. Second Treatise of Government served as a foundation for future political philosophies.

John Locke's Second Treatise on Government is the Natural Rights philosophy's greatest essay. Locke, an English freethinker, wrote both his Frist and Second Treatise on Government to refute the patriarchial and absolutist writings of Sir Robert Filmer. Locke clearly believes man is imbued with the natural right to life, liberty, and property. He believes men have a right to live free from tyrannical government.

Locke shows how when a government degenerates into tyranny the "people" have a right to revolt and throw off such government. Sound familar? Jefferson wrote these words into the Declaration of Independence. Locke believes that liberty is a man's right by his very nature of being human. He points out how that men come together to form a government, based upon a social contract, and that the rulers or government must abide by that contract or man returns to his natural state. In the natural state men are not bound to the current ruler but may institute new government for their security and protection.

Although he believed that government should not be changed lightly or on a whim, and believed that the ruler must violate the contract and usurp power, he nevertheless pointed out that government is of men, not God or gods. He repudiated the doctrine propagated by Filmer, that rulers are appointed to rule by God, ie: the Divine Right of Kings.

This "wee little book" as Jefferson put it, has had a tremendous influence on the Western world. Locke, a child of the English Enlightenment has caused conservatives and other tyrants, socialists and communists to shudder at the right to throw off tyrannical government. A truly great read.

John Locke (1632-1704) wrote "Second Treatise of Government" in 1690, it was the main political philosophical source that our "Founding Fathers" went to in writing the "Declaration of Independence" and in forming our government. I think you should know something of Locke to understand what influenced his thinking. His father was a small landowner, attorney, Puritan and his political sympathies were with the Cromwell Parliament. Like Hobbes, Locke attended Oxford Univ. and did not think much about the curriculum or his professors. Most of his education came from reading books in the Univ. library. Renee Descartes and Sir Isaac Newton's writings greatly influenced Locke. Like Hobbes, he took a tutoring job teaching the son of the 1st Earl of Shaftesbury, and traveled Europe. His friendship with the Earl was beneficial in obtaining government appointments. During the political unrest in England, (1679-83) he fled to Holland because his liberal notions put him at odds with the government.

Locke writes the "Second Treatise of Government" to justify the Revolt of 1688 and the ascension of William of Orange to the English throne. The book argues against two lines of absolutist ideas. The first is Sir Robert Filmer's "patriarchal theory of divine right of kings; secondly, Hobbes argument for the sovereign's absolute power in his book "Leviathan." Locke argues that government emanates from the people. Locke's treatise rests like other political writings on its interpretation of human nature. He sees our nature opposite the way Hobbes did, decent and not as selfish or competitive. Man is more inclined to join society through reason and not fear. Man prefers stability to change.

His very important contribution to "law of nature" theory was his bias toward individualism. In state of nature, before government, men were free independent, equal enjoying inalienable rights "chief among them being life, liberty, and property." Where have you read that before? Property rights receive much attention in this treatise. Locke argues that government based on consent of man can still preserve freedom independence and equality.

His political writing had immediate influence in the world and influenced our founding fathers in their struggle against tyranny. He is an excellent writer and his theories are easy to understand by the laymen. As a graduate student of political philosophy, I recommend if you have an interest in politics, philosophy, or government then you must read Locke's "Second Treatise of Government"

Hockey Haiku is a clever and zany collection of poetry. It's the perfect stocking stuffer or gift item for those hard to buy hockey fans...Why buy your boyfriend another NHL jersey or subscription to ESPN the magazine? Expand his mind a little and get him this collection, full of funny and witty haikus about hockey!

Best book of all time
So funny we laughed outloud
High five for haiku

The genius/craft of this work stands on it's own. My favorite part is watching my friends do a double take on the coffee table. "Hockey Haiku??? What the puck?!?"

No one, at least not anyone with half the wits of the most brilliant of the Winnipeg school, doubts the importance and influence of hockey Haiku in understanding and articulating the ontological and epistemological etiology and development of what we know as modern hockey. However, until now the history of this development has been a subject of mere conjecture. In this groundbreaking, epic work Poch and Davidson trace this development and its expression in Haiku verse and history from its vestigial beginnings to the modern day. No one who wishes to grasp the depth and breadth of what hockey is about can afford to neglect this book. Defining. Definitive. Comprehensive. Compelling.

One might expect a rejoinder on these pages from the Winnipeg school, but as this is a book of words and not pictures it will be rendered, necessairly, incomprehensible to them. So, don't hold your breath. Just buy the book.

Rumpole stories are like getting in touch with old friends after you've read a few of them. There is no ficitional character like the curmudgeonly Old Bailey hack, and we get to see him in six more wonderful stories in this book. The stories are, of course, all excellent, but I always pick a favourite and in this one it's "Rumpole and the Female of the Species". Rumpole's dry wit and acerbic tongue is at its best in this story as he is defending one of his old Timson gang of criminals, as well as trying to get a young female barrister accepted into Chambers. These stories never get stale, and they are all little gems in their own right. I highly recomeend that those who love to read and to laugh read Mortimer's long selection of stories about Horace Rumpole.

I wish that these stories had been narrated by Leo McKern; after all, John Mortimer wrote his Rumpole stories with McKern in mind. But if he wasn't available to narrate them, then Patrick Tull is a more than adequate substitute (which brings up the question: who on earth is Bill Wallis? The Recorded Books version that I rented doesn't mention anyone by that name.).

Tull does a great job of imitating the gruff-but-lovable Horace Rumpole, the barrister who makes courtroom dramas fun. I had not visited the Temple in quite a while, and it was good to reacquaint myself with both Erskine-Browns, Uncle Tom, and Guthrie Featherstone, Q.C., among others. If Patrick Tull is the narrator for any other Rumpole books I'd listen to them anytime.

Another great read about the skill, wit, caustic and irreverant QC, his bumbling confreres, She Who Must Be Obeyed, and a strong statement on English society.

Mortimer is a genius at writing because he makes Rumpole so real and memorable. And, how could anyone forget his wife, She Who Must Be Obeyed? My father, a lawyer, introduced me to Rumpole when it was a series on tv. I loved the TV Rumpole, but the books are even better! If you want a humorous, entertaining, delightful book about the English barristers and courts, this book is the right one. I loved this book and want more just like it!

I teach reading to inner city adults. This book is popular among Latino immigrants who have passed through ESL and are working on reading in English. It has a low reading level but is not "childish", an excellent introduction to this "amazing" person in American history.

This book has been very informative for both my 6th grade and my college-aged ESL students. It brings to life one of the most inventive and creative personalities in American history. He is presented in a very positive way, making him a role model that can be an example to younger and older people alike. This book is written in language that is easily understood by young or foreign readers. While it uses vocabulary that stretches the limits of a young person's ability, it also gives explantion for difficult passages. It gives thoughtful insight into American history preceding the Revolutionary War and the reasons for the War.

This is a book of high interest to my 5th and 6th grade students. Benjamin Franklin came alive on the pages of this book, and even inspired one young man to do further research into the life of this truly amazing American. The language is simple and straight forward making comprehenshion possible even for my students who are struggling with a very limited knowledge of the English language. I believe that this book is not only appropriate for children, but also an enjoyable reading experience for adults that are reading along with their children, or adults who are building their own reading skills. It never "talks down" to the reader. The world is hungry for heroes, and leaders who live and teach old-fashioned virtues. This book meets this need in an entertaining way.

JUST WHAT I NEED TO PASS THIS COURSE. FINALLY, I FOUND A BOOK ABOUT THE CIVIL WAR THAT EXPLAINS EVERYTHING IN DETAIL, YET DOESN'T GO ON AND ON ABOUT THE WAR. I'VE READ ALMOST HALF THE BOOK IN ONE DAY, AND IT GIVES VERY DETAILED INFORMATION THAT I CAN PROCESS EASILY. I HIGHLY RECOMMEND THIS BOOK FOR CIVIL WAR STUDENTS.

Those of us who study the American Civil War with passion have doubtless been faced with that perplexing question from Civil War novices who know little to nothing of the recent conflict: what is a good, short history of the War with the ability to provide an overview of our favorite period of American history? It's not easy. Do you recommend Shelby Foote's wonderful, yet massive three volume work? James McPherson's Battle Cry of Freedom? It's a great work, but probably too deep for the novice. But the answer is here.

Brooks D. Simpson, Associate Professor of History at Arizona State University and author of Let Us Have Peace: Ulysses S. Grant and the Politics of War and Reconstruction, 1861-1868, has brought us a single volume work eminently suitable for novice and experienced Civil War veteran alike. Written as part of the American History Series and published by Harlan Davidson, Inc., this work finally condenses the story of the War to a manageable size for the beginner and student alike.

Mr. Simpson manages to avoid the problems inherent in many works written about the Civil War: that of perceived prejudices and biases towards one side or the other. The causes of the War are examined from both sides, with a strong attempt to understand the motivations of both the North and South. The military conflict is presented in a straight-forward manner, and the limited size of the work limits discussions of major campaigns to highlights, rather than in-depth analysis. In many ways, this is a blessing for this type of work, because many of the controversies so familiar to the student are avoided for the moment.

The author does not conclude the inevitability of a Union victory, suggesting that the chances for Southern independence were available in 1862 and 1863 -- but were also even more apparent in 1864 as the war-weary North had to choose its next President. That Abraham Lincoln, U.S. Grant and William T. Sherman found the military means to generate significant victories and keep the war efforts of the North alive were key elements in eventual Northern victory. That the triumvirate of Lincoln, Sherman and Grant managed to split the Confederacy's ability to manage resources and the willingness to wage war went far towards eventually resolving the conflict. Southern inability to balance and manage these two issues finally led to capitulation in 1865.

Written in a clear, concise manner, this book belongs on the book shelves of any collector of writings on the Civil War.

Rayvon Fouche's Black Inventors In The Age Of Segregation: Granville T. Woods, Lewis H. Latimer, And Shelby J. Davidson refutes the common notion that inventors were lone geniuses who worked in relative isolation in the late 19th-early 20th century world. Most indeed developed their ideas within industrial organizations that supported their experiments: for blacks, this meant real challenges in working on innovative designs while breaking social barriers. Fouche here uses the lives and works of Granville Woods, Lewis Latimer and Shelby Davidson to detail the social frustrations underlying their research.

Professor Fouche has written a fabulous book! Black Inventors in the Age of Segregation is clearly the most thoroughly researched book on black inventors to date. He provides a detailed account of how difficult it was for black inventors to succeed in a segregated society. His book describes the experiences of three black inventors and explains their importance to African American people in the twentieth century. This is a must read for anyone wanting to know more about black inventors, their inventions, and their lives, as well as those interested in African American history and the history of invention.

I am a graduate student in theology and have been doing research for a few years now in early medieval church history, concentrating on corruption and controversy. While recently studying the filioque controversy, I had come across many many bits and pieces about this, but had never found an outline in one place until I came across this book. Kelly writes in a clear and easily understood manner. This text should be on the shelf of any pastor, historian, or theologian.

When we lost JND Kelly a couple of years ago (he was in his 90's), the theological world, both Catholic and Protestant, lost a giant. "Ancient Christian Creeds" demonstrates a part of Kelly's genius. It is an invaluable resource for the graduate level or seminary student in theology (and was, in fact, one of the texts used in my Historical Theology class when I was a seminarian). Kelly describes the evolution of creedal thoughts and ideas, as well as the development of the various formulae themselves, beginning with the Old Roman Baptismal statement through the Creed of Nicea/Constantinople.

I can't recommend this book highly enough.

Which brain mechanisms are involved in the typical social interactions that humans engage in everyday life? To what extent are these interactions determined by the dynamical processes in the human brain? Are there separate areas or modules in the brain responsible for these interactions, and what happens when these modules become dysfunctional? These questions, along with many more, are addressed in this collection of articles, which are written for experts in cognitive neuroscience. However, non-experts, such as this reviewer, can profit from a perusal of the articles, even if they have only an understanding of the basic rudiments of cognitive neuroscience. Only twenty-six of these articles were read by this reviewer, and for lack of space just a few of these will be reviewed here.

The article entitled "Neural Correlates of Theory-of-Mind Reasoning: An Event-Related Potential Study", is an attempt to find the neural system that is behind reasoning about mental states. Such a finding is deemed important by the authors of this article, since an impairment of this system may result in autism. They quote research that is suggestive of the idea that the ability to think about mental representations of reality, such as beliefs, is not correlated with the ability to think about other kinds of representations of reality, such as photographs. Autistic individuals have trouble with the former but not with the latter. The authors outline experimental tests that illustrate these differences, and also discuss experiments that show that autistic individuals show greater impairment for left-hemispheric tasks. The implications of these studies for a modularized theory of mind is discussed in some detail, and they conclude these studies give evidence for the assertion that neurophysiological abnormalities in autistic individuals is related to deficits in their social cognitive abilities.

For this reviewer, the most interesting article in the book is the one entitled "Attention, Self-Regulation, and Consciousness", which as the name implies, addresses the study of consciousness. The scientific study of consciousness is finally being taken seriously by cognitive neuroscientists, and this article gives a good example of this. The authors concentrate on the voluntary control of the mental processes that are responsible for the regulation of behavior and thought. They clearly have no qualms at being at odds with entrenched philosophical notions of consciousness and voluntary control. The neuronal system that is responsible for the regulation of thought, emotion, and behavior, is, in their view, one that consists of the midfrontal cortical areas and the underlying basal ganglia. This system has been called the `executive network' by cognitive neuroscientists, and is active for tasks involving selection, conflict, and error detection. The authors discuss various experiments that were conducted to investigate the brain mechanisms behind these three tasks. For selection, the experiment involved the reading of individual words and monitoring (using PET) the brain activity in finding the use of the words. The `scalp signatures' of some of these activations, along with the PET and later fMRI studies, reveal the dynamics involved in the creation of a single thought. The fMRI data revealed even more, namely that different areas are activated when different semantic categories are processed. Most interesting is that these experiments revealed that the neuronal activity in an area that is attended to inhibits items that are far outside of the category attended to. When elements of a task are in conflict, it is expected that executive control will perform the selected function. Experiments involving the Stroop effect revealed that the midline frontal areas are involved in the resolution of conflict between tasks, but that they are not involved in the feelings of conflict and effort. The supervisory attention system is also concerned with error detection, which the authors view as a conscious strategy to adjust the performance speed to a level of accuracy that is deemed adequate. Experiments revealed that error negativity is localized in the anterior cingulate gyrus, but that the areas of activation of the cingulate were different depending on the task demand.

Still another highly interesting article is entitled "In Search of the Self: A Positron Emission Tomography Study" wherein the authors study the assertion that the association of episodic memory retrieval with the activation of right prefrontal cortex can be attributed to the representation of the self in this portion of the brain. In addition, the authors wanted to find out if there was any evidence for the neural correlates of self-referential processing, i.e. does an individual for example remember a word better if it is reference with respect to the self rather than just processed in semantic terms? In the opinion of the authors, if the self is involved in the activation of the right frontal regions in a manner which is independent of the nature of the cognitive operation, then self-referential encoding will also be associated with PET activations that are mainly right lateralized. If the self-referential encoding is associated with activations in the left frontal regions, then it would be similar to other types of (deeper) processing. Experiments were conducted that enabled a comparison between semantic "self", "other", and "general" tasks, and nonsemantic "syllable" tasks. These experiments revealed that adjectives judged semantically were better recognized in a later test than adjectives judged in terms of the number of syllables. Adjectives in the "self" condition were better recognized than those in the "other" and "general" conditions, thus indicating a self-reference effect in memory. Most interesting is the authors' contention that the similarities in cortical activation patterns between the "self" condition and the "other" and "general" conditions reveal that thoughts of self involve a "conceptual self", i.e. a representational schema that arises from an abstraction of several personal episodes. Quoting other researchers, they view the self as a "highly-organized cognitive structure" abstracted from individual instances. Individuals who are brain-damaged and do not possess episodic memory but who can form accurate judgments about their personality characteristics provide further evidence for their assertions.

It isn't that they shouldn't, but some words, posed as category mistakes, don't seem to go together. For instances, consider waves and particles, "genomic environment" or, as is the case in the title under review, "social neuroscience." These odd couples seem to grind against each other, as if repelled to opposite places in long established categories like tectonic plates whose shifting juxtaposition shambles an established order. This antonymic phenomenon highlights a problem that has confronted science-makers stretching back at least as far as Plato and Aristotle and on to Descartes, Popper, and contemporary philosophers of science. The problem is this. To study, we take things apart, introducing vast vocabularies of particularization. To understand more comprehensively, we put these particulars back together, meshing, overlapping, integrating, and harmonizing the cacophony of disciplinary vocabularies. These are not either/or processes. It was so much easier in thought networks like those of the Zuni who saw ever so clearly that there was no such distinction between a wave and the sea itself. They called it "slosh."

FOUNDATIONS IN SOCIAL NEUROSCIENCE is a hefty volume (1357 pages) demonstrating that neuroscience is now old enough to be married to human adaptive experience. Like the Zuni word "slosh" it reminds us that nature abhors boundaries as well as vacuums. FOUNDATIONS evidences meaningful synthesis and integration, working up and down the conceptual ladder from the micro to the macro and back again. Transduction processes are explicated from mRNA to hormonal development to tactile comforting to social capital and then back to mRNA, as environmental circumstances feed forward and back to affect neurophysiological and neurochemical ones in the ongoing dynamics of human adaptation.

FOUNDATIONS IN SOCIAL NEUROSCIENCE is also, in a sense, a birth announcement of a novel interdiscipline. This is concretized in a very unusual arrangement, the kind one comes to expect from The University of Chicago, where John T. Cacioppo, the first listed editor of this volume, is the Tiffany & Margaret Blake Distinguished Service Professor, Director of the Social Psychology Program AND Director of the Center for Cognitive and Social Neuroscience. Other editors include Gary G. Berntson, Ralph Adolphs, C. Sue Carter and eight others whose names are a Who's Who in the biological and social sciences. Thus FOUNDATIONS might well be called the bible of this newly emerging integrative program, with newer testaments added by professors Cacioppo and Berntson and colleagues more recently. (Cf. J.T. Cacioppo & G.G. Berntson, Eds., ESSAYS IN SOCIAL NEUROSCIENCE, Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2004; J.T. Cacioppo & G.G. Berntson, Eds.. SOCIAL NEUROSCIENCE: KEY READINGS. New York: Psychology Press, 2004; J.T. Cacioppo, P.S. Visser, & C.L. Pickett, Eds.. SOCIAL NEUROSCIENCE: PEOPLE THINKING ABOUT THINKING PEOPLE. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2005.

A short list of FOUNDATIONS accomplishments includes 1) the significant effort toward the creation of harmony out of the disciplines of genetics, physiology, immunology, endocrinology, neuroscience, cognitive psychology, personality psychology and sociology 2) the description of a relatively seamless connectedness from DNA to social experience to DNA, 3) the taxonomic outline of Social Neuroscience as a scientific interdiscipline: (A) Multilevel Integrative Analysis of Social Behavior, (B) Social Cognition and the Brain, (C) Social Neuroscience of Motivation, Emotion, and Attitudes, (D) Biology of Social Relationships and Interpersonal Processes, (E) Social Influences on Biology and Health, and 4) the collection of seminal research in social neuroscience between the covers of one very big book. At least implicitly, numerous chapters challenge Francis Crick's "Central Dogma" and the notion of locked in and closed off genetic material impervious to adaptive environmental influences.

FOUNDATIONS has 83 chapters but the one by Liu, Diorio, et al. (Chap. 48: Maternal care, hippocampal glucocorticoid receptors and hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal responses to stress), which reports on the research program from the Montreal laboratory of Michael Meaney at McGill, gives a very good sense of the integration from mRNA to hormonal and neural development to social activity and then back again to mRNA. The authors pick up on the work of Levine a half century ago on the post-partum handling of rat pups, who when compared to non-handled ones, had reduced responses to stress. Levine's work revealed that the handling affected the stress response including hormonal release (adrenal corticosterone). Liu and colleagues report on a series of experiments showing that handling affects pup behavior (increased ultrasonic vocalizations), which affects maternal care (pattern of licking and grooming), which affects variability in the expression of mRNA in various systems, which affects neural and hormonal system development (parvocellular neurons of the paraventricular nucleus of the hypothalamus), which affects inhibitory feedback of the stress response (in rats, level of release of corticotrophin releasing hormone) and raises the possibility of non-genomic modes of inheritance. (For more on non-genomic inheritance see: E. Jablonka & M.J. Lamb, EVOLUTION IN FOUR DIMENSIONS. Cambridge: MIT Press, 2005).

FOUNDATIONS is an extraordinary exposition that is a must read for life and social scientists as well as those life-long learners interested in human adaptation. An excellent companion volume is by Bruce S. McEwen and H. Maurice Goodman, Eds.. HANDBOOK OF PHYSIOLOGY: COPING WITH THE ENVIRONMENT: Vol. IV. Oxford: Oxford Univ. Press, 2001. See also, A. R. Cellura's THE GENOMIC ENVIRONMENT AND NICHE-EXPERIENCE. Abbeville, SC: Cedar Springs Press, 2005, for the confluence of genomic influences, central nervous system development, economic regimes, ecological niches, caloric intake, stature, morbidity and mortality.