Through shrewdly selected examples and engaging interviews with researchers, science journalist Pool (Science, Discover, Nature, etc.) assembles a convincing argument to explain the biological basis of sexual differences. Wisely limiting himself, Pool considers the role of hormones in prenatal development: While all fetuses begin as female, the male is differentiated by an infusion of testosterone that alters both the structure of the brain and its function. For biological reasons, then, he claims, boys really do prefer trucks and girls dolls. Boys have a better spatial sense, stronger competitive instincts, and a preference for objects, whereas girls demonstrate greater verbal ability, a more cooperative nature, and an interest in people. Moreover, faced with the same problems, boys and girls use different parts of the brain to solve them and at different speeds: While both can get out of a maze, girls look for landmarks but boys prefer maps. Physiologically, while the male brain is larger, it is not necessarily superior. Of course, there are variations: girls with excess testosterone; boys with excess estrogen; chemicals such as DES that effect pregnancies; and changes in the hormone levels throughout life. All of these biological events, according to Pool, influence behavior far more than the socialization process to which feminists especially have attributed the sexual stereotypes that they want to overturn. Ironically, it was women, often feminists, who made the discoveries about the biological bases of sexual differences. In a speculative chapter, Pool concludes that these differences evolved to suit a more primitive culture and are no longer relevant or useful. A convincing and optimistic study promoting the advantages of difference, the futility of influencing the environment of young children to produce people who are the same but not necessarily equal. Pool captures the resourcefulness of the researchers, the voices of those who made the discoveries and tested them in their own lives.
Pub Date: April 27, 1994
ISBN: 0-517-59298-3
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 1994
BOOK REVIEW
Stricter than, say, Bergen Evans or W3 ("disinterested" means impartial — period), Strunk is in the last analysis...
Privately published by Strunk of Cornell in 1918 and revised by his student E. B. White in 1959, that "little book" is back again with more White updatings.
Stricter than, say, Bergen Evans or W3 ("disinterested" means impartial — period), Strunk is in the last analysis (whoops — "A bankrupt expression") a unique guide (which means "without like or equal").Pub Date: May 15, 1972
ISBN: 0205632645
Page Count: 105
Publisher: Macmillan
Review Posted Online: Oct. 28, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 1972
An autobiography as toxic and addictive as any drug its author has ever ingested.
The legendary booze-addled metal rocker turned reality-TV star comes clean in his tell-all autobiography.
Although brought up in the bleak British factory town of Aston, John “Ozzy” Osbourne’s tragicomic rags-to-riches tale is somehow quintessentially American. It’s an epic dream/nightmare that takes him from Winson Green prison in 1966 to a presidential dinner with George W. Bush in 2004. Tracing his adult life from petty thief and slaughterhouse worker to rock star, Osbourne’s first-person slang-and-expletive-driven style comes off like he’s casually relating his story while knocking back pints at the pub. “What you read here,” he writes, “is what dribbled out of the jelly I call my brain when I asked it for my life story.” During the late 1960s his transformation from inept shoplifter to notorious Black Sabbath frontman was unlikely enough. In fact, the band got its first paying gigs by waiting outside concert venues hoping the regularly scheduled act wouldn’t show. After a few years, Osbourne and his bandmates were touring America and becoming millionaires from their riff-heavy doom music. As expected, with success came personal excess and inevitable alienation from the other members of the group. But as a solo performer, Osbourne’s predilection for guns, drink, drugs, near-death experiences, cruelty to animals and relieving himself in public soon became the stuff of legend. His most infamous exploits—biting the head off a bat and accidentally urinating on the Alamo—are addressed, but they seem tame compared to other dark moments of his checkered past: nearly killing his wife Sharon during an alcohol-induced blackout, waking up after a bender in the middle of a busy highway, burning down his backyard, etc. Osbourne is confessional to a fault, jeopardizing his demonic-rocker reputation with glib remarks about his love for Paul McCartney and Robin Williams. The most distinguishing feature of the book is the staggering chapter-by-chapter accumulation of drunken mishaps, bodily dysfunctions and drug-induced mayhem over a 40-plus-year career—a résumé of anti-social atrocities comparable to any of rock ’n’ roll’s most reckless outlaws.
An autobiography as toxic and addictive as any drug its author has ever ingested.Pub Date: Jan. 25, 2010
ISBN: 978-0-446-56989-7
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Grand Central Publishing
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2009
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