Author: Iain McGilchrist File Type: epub A new edition of the bestselling classic published with a special introduction to mark its 10th anniversary This pioneering account sets out to understand the structure of the human brain the place where mind meets matter. Until recently, the left hemisphere of our brain has been seen as the rational side, the superior partner to the right. But is this distinction true? Drawing on a vast body of experimental research, Iain McGilchrist argues while our left brain makes for a wonderful servant, it is a very poor master. As he shows, it is the right side which is the more reliable and insightful. Without it, our world would be mechanistic stripped of depth, colour and value. **From Publishers Weekly A U.K. mental health consultant and clinical director with a background in literature, McGilchrist attempts to synthesize his two areas of expertise, arguing that the divided and asymmetrical nature of the human brain is reflected in the history of Western culture. Part I, The Divided Brain, lays the groundwork for his thesis, examining two lobes significantly different features (structure, sensitivity to hormones, etc.) and separate functions (the left hemisphere is concerned with what, the right with how). He suggests that music, ultimately... the communication of emotion, is the ancestor of language, arising largely in the right hemisphere while the culture of the written word tends inevitably toward the predominantly left hemisphere. More controversially, McGilchrist argues that there is no such thing as the brain as such, only the brain as we perceive it this leads him to conclude that different periods of Western civilization (from the Homeric epoch to the present), one or the other hemisphere has predominated, defining consistent ways of being that persist through time. This densely argued book is aimed at an academic crowd, is notable for its sweep but a stretch in terms of a uniting thesis. Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. Review This is a very remarkable book ... McGilchrist, who is both an experienced psychiatrist and a shrewd philosopher, looks at the relation between our two brain-hemispheres in a new light, not just as an interesting neurological problem but as a crucial shaping factor in our culture ... clear, penetrating, lively, thorough and fascinating ... splendidly thought-provoking ... I couldnt put it down. -- Professor Mary Midgley, The Guardian A beautifully written, erudite, fascinating and adventurous book. It embraces a prodigious range of enquiry, from neurology to psychology, from philosophy to primatology, from myth to history to literature. It goes from the microstructure of the brain to great epochs of Western civilisation, confidently and readably. One turns its five hundred pages - a further hundred are dense with notes and references in tiny print - as if it were an adventure story ... McGilchrist tells us about the rapidly evolving technologies and experimental work in fascinating and lucid detail. -- Professor AC Grayling, The Literary Review It is no exaggeration to say that this quite remarkable book will radically change the way you understand the world and yourself ... Reading this book, to which you will want to return on a regular basis (one reading cannot possibly exhaust its multifaceted insights) will help you better understand reality and the way we experience and represent it. It is a genuine tour de force, a monumental achievement - I can think of no one else who could have conceived, let alone written, a book of such penetrating brilliance. -- David Lorimer, Scientific and Medical Network Review 20 years in gestation, this remarkable survey of the human brain is one of few contemporary works deserving classic status ... [McGilchrist] writes with penetrating authority. -- Nicholas Shakespeare, The Times A fascinating book ... [McGilchrist] is a subtle and clever thinker, and unusually qualified to range with such authority over so many different domains of knowledge.-- Harry Eyres,Financial Times A dazzling masterpiece, hugely ambitious and the most comprehensive, profound book ever written on brain laterality... One puts down this beautifully written, profound, philosophically sophisticated book thinking psychiatrist and former Oxford English professor McGilchrist might just be one of the most learned people in Europe. Professor Norman Doidge, University of Toronto & Columbia University, NY, and author of The Brain That Changes Itself, Book of the Year, writing in Canadas The Globe & Mail This book is a wake-up call. In the most comprehensive, and lucid, review to date of findings from research on differences in consciousness, motives and emotions in the two cerebral hemispheres ... Dr McGilchrist, a humanist scholar and psychiatrist, deliberates on their significance for our scientific and philosophical understanding of ourselves, and of our fate in the modern technical world with its complex artificial devices. -- Professor Colwyn Trevarthen, Professor of Child Psychology and Psychobiology, University of Edinburgh A wonderful book - broad in scope and full of incisive detail. It should be required reading for any serious student of human psychology. For researchers involved in hemisphere studies, the historicalcultural context. -- Professor Norman Cook, Professor of Informatics at Kansai University, Osaka, and author of The Brain Code Mechanisms of Information Transfer and the Corpus Callosum

Author: Kusujiro Miyoshi File Type: pdf This book analyses Noah Websters and Samuel Johnsons use of verbal examples in their dictionaries as a means of giving guidance on word usage. This analysis reveals that Johnsons selection of sources of citations and the frequency of his quoting citations tended to vary strongly according to the types of entry word. In contrast, almost all of Websters citations were taken from Johnsons Dictionary. However, Webster significantly made full use of such citations to express his view on word usage, which differs essentially from Johnsons.