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A review by morgan_blackledge
In Search of Memory: The Emergence of a New Science of Mind by Eric R. Kandel
4.0
Warning: this book can be a little dull in the autobiographical sections (which you are free to skim), and a bit challenging in some of the technical parts (particularly if you are new to the nuts and bolts of cognitive neuroscience). But if you're a cognitive neuroscience dork (like me) and you love reading about the history of science (like me), and if you are reading this book on an e-reader, so you can pop back and forth between the text and web based resources e.g. Wikipedia etc. (like me), than this book is amazing!
It's part autobiography of a son of a middle class Viennese toy merchant, who came to America as a child refugee from Nazi Germany, and went on to become a founder of a revolutionary new branch of science, and then was awarded a Nobel prize, and then kept going.
This book is also an account of the 150 year (+) emergence of neuroscience and its confluence with molecular biology, psychiatry, behaviorism and cognitive science (eventually to become its own sub discipline, cognitive neuroscience). Additionally, this book functions as a step by step primer (more or less a condensed text book) on the biological sub straights of learning and memory, beginning with the neuron doctrine, and proceeding up to our current cutting edge, without omitting any important steps along the way.
Lastly, this book serves a tacit function as an advice manual for young students who want to answer big questions (like what is consciousness), but really should begin by looking at small things (like neurons).
I think of this book as the ultimate supplemental reading (or refresher) for any bio psych, or cognitive psych course. It really fills in some of the big blanks and brings the data to life, making it more human and thusly, much more memorable (irony aside), and therefore, much more functional/useable.
If you have a real interest in the mind and brain (like me). And if you love to learn a subject both in the abstract, and from within a personal and historical context (like me), than I think you'll love this book.
It's part autobiography of a son of a middle class Viennese toy merchant, who came to America as a child refugee from Nazi Germany, and went on to become a founder of a revolutionary new branch of science, and then was awarded a Nobel prize, and then kept going.
This book is also an account of the 150 year (+) emergence of neuroscience and its confluence with molecular biology, psychiatry, behaviorism and cognitive science (eventually to become its own sub discipline, cognitive neuroscience). Additionally, this book functions as a step by step primer (more or less a condensed text book) on the biological sub straights of learning and memory, beginning with the neuron doctrine, and proceeding up to our current cutting edge, without omitting any important steps along the way.
Lastly, this book serves a tacit function as an advice manual for young students who want to answer big questions (like what is consciousness), but really should begin by looking at small things (like neurons).
I think of this book as the ultimate supplemental reading (or refresher) for any bio psych, or cognitive psych course. It really fills in some of the big blanks and brings the data to life, making it more human and thusly, much more memorable (irony aside), and therefore, much more functional/useable.
If you have a real interest in the mind and brain (like me). And if you love to learn a subject both in the abstract, and from within a personal and historical context (like me), than I think you'll love this book.