The experience of looking at art has neurobiological correlates in the brain. Inner Vision: An Exploration of Art and the Brain describes these. Semir Zeki (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Semir_Zeki) uses a range of examples from artists including Michelangelo, Rembrandt, Vermeer, Magritte, Malevich and Picasso. The book constitutes a kind of aesthetic tour of the brain. Zeki offers a systematic […]
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The mass emigrations from Scotland, beginning in earnest in the late 18th century and lasting through most of the 19th, have shaped the country we live in today. Marjory Harper (https://www.uhi.ac.uk/en/research-enterprise/cultural/centre-for-history/staff/professor-marjory-harper/) tells the story of the evictions and emigration from Highlands and Lowlands. She also understands the ambition that drove many to seek out a
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It’s often useful to absorb the best arguments of thinkers whom one disagrees with most sharply. Only then can your own position be strengthened. In the same way, a chess player wishing to improve seeks out the strongest opponent. In this book Philippa Foot (https://www.theguardian.com/world/2010/oct/05/philippa-foot-obituary) sets out a naturalistic theory of ethics, which she calls
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One of the texts from the Ancient world of lasting influence, and which can still be enjoyed with sympathy by the modern reader, is Meditations (https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/marcus-aurelius/#ChaMed) by Marcus Aurelius. This Roman Emperor spent most of his life campaigning against barbarians, dealing with conspiracy at home, and combating Christianity. Yet the most powerful man in the world
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Anyone with a passion for understanding the ancient world will have this book on their shelves. It is a vivid account of the Jewish people from the conquest of Palestine by Alexander the Great in 332 BCE to the revolt of the Maccabees. With great skill and scholarship Elias J. Bickerman (http://www.nytimes.com/1981/09/02/obituaries/elias-j-bickerman-a-hellenic-scholar-on-columbia-staff.html) relates the story
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Catching a mysterious pool of early morning sunlight playfully cast across his kitchen ceiling gave Caspar Henderson (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caspar_Henderson) pause for wonder. The experience inspired him to think more closely about the nature of wonder. His reflections have issued in this enthusiastic tour of much that seems ordinary but which is upheld by the complex and
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In this sweeping history of Russia over the past four decades, Masha Gessen (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Masha_Gessen) argues that totalitarian Soviet mentality did not die out with the Soviet Union. Gessen reveals what life is like under the Putin tyranny through a cast of characters. For example Lyosha, a young gay man in a toxically anti-gay provincial
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Strange and upsetting things have been happening in the world recently. A great many people are believing weird things and acting on them. Conspiracy theories such as Q-Anon (QAnon – Wikipedia) abound, whilst the consequences of irrational motivations can be terrible. Theodore Schick has offered one of the best primers I’ve come across for
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Pulitzer Prize-winning author of A Visit from the Goon Squad, Jennifer Egan (http://jenniferegan.com/about/), offers us this historical fiction set in New York in the first half of the 20th century. In this novel her focus moves from time to water, which is shown to have the power both to heal and to destroy. Anna Kerrigan, the novel’s
