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THE SEASONS OF A WOMAN'S LIFE

Name: THE SEASONS OF A WOMAN'S LIFE
Author: Daniel J. Levinson
ISBN: 0-394-53235-X

by Daniel J. Levinson with Judy D. Levinson ‧ RELEASE DATE: Jan. 26, 1996

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Interpretations of women's life histories support the hypothesis that the road through adulthood is a series of developmental construction zones, relieved only rarely by a measured mile of achievement-related superhighway. The early work of Yale psychologist Daniel J. Levinson fell in the shadow of Gail Sheehy's 1970s bestseller, Passages, which drew on research for Levinson's respected (but not bestselling) study of adult male psychological development (The Seasons of a Man's Life, 1978). Nearly two decades later, this new volume, polished and edited by wife Judy after Levinson's death in 1994, offers a map of women's adult development. (Judy Levinson also deserves much of the credit for analyzing the many interviews and identifying life stages.) Levinson's primary subjects were 45 housewives, corporate achievers, and academics, ages 35 to 45, from whose lives he teased patterns of development. In the approximately 40 years from the end of adolescence to the final phase of middle adulthood, Levinson identifies eight periods, beginning with the transition from adolescence to early adulthood and proceeding through building an early life structure (comprising choices about marriage and family, occupation, separation from parents, and lifestyle), a mid-era transition involving reappraisal, and a culminating life structure, which allows breathing space to enjoy one's new status before moving on to the next transition. The Levinsons extrapolate to later life stages, which are said to follow the same pattern. Levinson somewhat naively expresses his surprise at ``the extent and power of the differences'' between men and women, which he attributes to society's splitting of gender roles, although he does predict a slow and lengthy evolution toward ``gender equality.'' Probably too little too late, but read it for the stimulating early and ending chapters, which argue convincingly that the tumultuous eras marking the decades from 20 to 50 are part of a struggle to maturity that men and women share. (First printing of 30,000)

Pub Date: Jan. 26, 1996

ISBN: 0-394-53235-X

Page Count: 448

Publisher: Knopf

Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 1995

Categories:

SELF-HELP

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THE LAWS OF HUMAN NATURE

by Robert Greene ‧ RELEASE DATE: Oct. 23, 2018

The Stoics did much better with the much shorter Enchiridion.

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A follow-on to the author’s garbled but popular 48 Laws of Power, promising that readers will learn how to win friends and influence people, to say nothing of outfoxing all those “toxic types” out in the world.

Greene (Mastery, 2012, etc.) begins with a big sell, averring that his book “is designed to immerse you in all aspects of human behavior and illuminate its root causes.” To gauge by this fat compendium, human behavior is mostly rotten, a presumption that fits with the author’s neo-Machiavellian program of self-validation and eventual strategic supremacy. The author works to formula: First, state a “law,” such as “confront your dark side” or “know your limits,” the latter of which seems pale compared to the Delphic oracle’s “nothing in excess.” Next, elaborate on that law with what might seem to be as plain as day: “Losing contact with reality, we make irrational decisions. That is why our success often does not last.” One imagines there might be other reasons for the evanescence of glory, but there you go. Finally, spin out a long tutelary yarn, seemingly the longer the better, to shore up the truism—in this case, the cometary rise and fall of one-time Disney CEO Michael Eisner, with the warning, “his fate could easily be yours, albeit most likely on a smaller scale,” which ranks right up there with the fortuneteller’s “I sense that someone you know has died" in orders of probability. It’s enough to inspire a new law: Beware of those who spend too much time telling you what you already know, even when it’s dressed up in fresh-sounding terms. “Continually mix the visceral with the analytic” is the language of a consultant’s report, more important-sounding than “go with your gut but use your head, too.”

The Stoics did much better with the much shorter Enchiridion.

Pub Date: Oct. 23, 2018

ISBN: 978-0-525-42814-5

Page Count: 580

Publisher: Viking

Review Posted Online: July 30, 2018

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2018

Categories:

PSYCHOLOGY | SELF-HELP

- BOOK REVIEW
MASTERY
by Robert Greene

- BOOK REVIEW
THE 48 LAWS OF POWER
by Robert Greene

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MASTERY

by Robert Greene ‧ RELEASE DATE: Nov. 13, 2012

Readers unfamiliar with the anecdotal material Greene presents may find interesting avenues to pursue, but they should...

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Greene (The 33 Strategies of War, 2007, etc.) believes that genius can be learned if we pay attention and reject social conformity.

The author suggests that our emergence as a species with stereoscopic, frontal vision and sophisticated hand-eye coordination gave us an advantage over earlier humans and primates because it allowed us to contemplate a situation and ponder alternatives for action. This, along with the advantages conferred by mirror neurons, which allow us to intuit what others may be thinking, contributed to our ability to learn, pass on inventions to future generations and improve our problem-solving ability. Throughout most of human history, we were hunter-gatherers, and our brains are engineered accordingly. The author has a jaundiced view of our modern technological society, which, he writes, encourages quick, rash judgments. We fail to spend the time needed to develop thorough mastery of a subject. Greene writes that every human is “born unique,” with specific potential that we can develop if we listen to our inner voice. He offers many interesting but tendentious examples to illustrate his theory, including Einstein, Darwin, Mozart and Temple Grandin. In the case of Darwin, Greene ignores the formative intellectual influences that shaped his thought, including the discovery of geological evolution with which he was familiar before his famous voyage. The author uses Grandin's struggle to overcome autistic social handicaps as a model for the necessity for everyone to create a deceptive social mask.

Readers unfamiliar with the anecdotal material Greene presents may find interesting avenues to pursue, but they should beware of the author's quirky, sometimes misleading brush-stroke characterizations.