Product Description
What does it mean to be human? There are many theories of the evolution of human behavior which seek to explain how our brains evolved to support our unique abilities and personalities. Most of these have focused on the role of brain size or specific genetic adaptations of the brain. In contrast, Fred Previc presents a provocative theory that high levels of dopamine, the most widely studied neurotransmitter, account for all major aspects of modern human behavior. He further emphasizes the role of epigenetic rather than genetic factors in the rise of dopamine. Previc contrasts the great achievements of the dopaminergic mind with the harmful effects of rising dopamine levels in modern societies and concludes with a critical examination of whether the dopaminergic mind that has evolved in humans is still adaptive to the health of humans and to the planet in general. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Refreshingly Bold and Provocative Speculations on the Origins of the Modern Human Mind
If there is one personality trait that is bred into scientists, it surely is caution in making broad claims.The broader the claim, the more likely it will be met with resistance.This caution often results in hyper-specialization because there is safety in staying in the comfortable boundaries of one's specialty.

Yet, at the same time, the broader the claim, the greater a theory's potential explanatory and predictive power.And, only broad and wide-ranging theories can ever aspire to bridge the islands of specialties and sub-specialties.Darwin's theory of evolution by natural selection is so powerful precisely because of its wide-ranging explanatory and predictive power.Elegantly simple, the theory of evolution by natural selection has quite simply brought order to the biological sciences.

The premise of Dr. Previc's "The Dopaminergic Mind in Human Evolution and History" has the character of such a wide-ranging, unifying theory.In fact, it has many of the qualities of a "theory of everything"--connecting evolutionary psychology, neuroscience, personality psychology, and other disciplines with a singular connecting thread.That thread is "dopamine"--the most studied neurotransmitter.

Briefly, Dr. Previc presents the provocative theory that approximately 80,000 years ago, high levels of dopamine led to the profound developmental leaps that most set modern man apart from his human and primate relatives.To do so, he follows the thread of dopamine through the critical cognitive skills of motor programming, working memory, cognitive flexibility, abstract representations, temporal analysis/sequencing, and generativity/creativivity.

While, according to Previc, dopamine has been critical to the development of advanced human intelligence and language, it is possible to have too much of a good thing.In fact, Previc links an excess of dopamine to such individual disorders as autism (shades of Simon Baron-Cohen's "extreme male brain") , schizophrenia and obsessive compulsive disorder--and to such social dysfunctions as "endless wars and conquests, alienation from the land, stratification of society, inequality between the sexes, a reduction of leisure time, increased detachment and even alienation from our fellow human, increased mental illness, and more recently, serious environmental degradation."

Personally, I was most intrigued by Dr. Previc's speculations on the effect of substantial increases in brain dopamine on the personalities of well-known historic figures.In a chapter dedicated to what he calls the "Dopaminergic Personality in History", Previc describes how the lives of Alexander the Great, Christopher Columbus, Isaac Newton, Napoleon Bonaparte, and Albert Einstein evidence the influence of high levels of dopamine.According to Previc, this personality is characterized by a high degree of intelligence, a sense of personal destiny, a religious/cosmic preoccupation, and enormous focus (obsession) with achieving supreme goals and conquests, an emotional detachment that in many cases leads to ruthlessness, and a risk-taking mentality that can lead to consequences ranging from merely embarrassing to the outright disastrous.

The "dopaminergic society" is essentially the dopaminergic personality writ large.It is a extremely goal-oriented society.It is fast-paced and even manic "given that dopamine is known to increase activity levels, speed up our internal clocks and create a preference for novel over unchanging environments." In the same way that high dopamine individuals lack empathy and exhibit a more masculine behavioral style, dopaminergic societies are "typified by more conquest, competition, and aggression than nurturance and communality."In a such societies high dopamine individuals thrive, and through their influence, these individuals in turn increase the dopaminergic qualities of society.

Dr. Previc concludes his book with two chapters that offer prescriptions for addressing what he calls the "hyperdopaminergic syndrome"--non-adaptive high levels of dopamine.

Dr. Previc is a research scientist, and there is no mistaking that this book is steeped in the language of neuroscience.The book is somewhere in between the type of explication you would see in a science journal article and a book intended for a wider audience of people interested in developments in neuroscience.For the non-scientist, it is a challenging but not dauntingly inaccessible book.I suspect that those scientists and non-scientists who have an interest in evolutionary psychology, personality psychology and neuroscience will be the most intrigued by "The Dopaminergic Mind in Evolution and History."

Previc's claims are broad and thought provoking.If true, I suspect that the theory of the dopaminergic mind will have wide-ranging explanatory and predictive power.If wrong, the theory is still refreshingly thought provoking, and is an exemplar of the kind of bold theorizing that should be welcomed in the sciences in the interest of bridging the safe islands of specialization that have arisen with the overwhelming increase in scientific knowledge.If one thing characterizes this book it is a powerful impulse to build these bridges.I thoroughly enjoyed reading along as Dr. Previc wove his dopamine thread through such seemingly disconnected islands as testosterone, yin yang, war, brain lateralization, Napoleon's personality, mental illness, and hunter gatherer tribes.

Ironically, if Previc is correct, it is dopamine itself that makes possible the intelligence to identify the dangers of the "too much of a good thing" that is dopamine "gone wild."

(My only major complaint is that this 200 some page book was priced by Cambridge University Press for the library market.I think it should have been priced for a broader market.Hopefully they will consider repricing the book or doing a paperback edition in the near future to eliminate any resistance prospective readers may have to getting this important book.)


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Product Description
This book an EXACT reproduction of the original book published before 1923. This IS NOT an OCR'd book with strange characters, introduced typographical errors, and jumbled words.This book may have occasional imperfections such as missing or blurred pages, poor pictures, errant marks, etc. that were either part of the original artifact, or were introduced by the scanning process. We believe this work is culturally important, and despite the imperfections, have elected to bring it back into print as part of our continuing commitment to the preservation of printed works worldwide. We appreciate your understanding of the imperfections in the preservation process, and hope you enjoy this valuable book. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (3)

Old but good
I needed a readable book about kinetic theory and this is one of the two I liked the most.
It shows you every step and every assumption in deriving Boltzmann's equation and hydrodynamic equations.

Unique
This book indeed is characterized by an unusual and very rare selection of topics. It is fairly mathematically rigorous, and not intendeed for a beginner. A reasonable mastery of graduate level theoretical physics is required, and I personally believe that the mathematical rigor in this book is absolutely necessary, and is by all means not a downside. This book is a 'must-have' for anyone interested in quantum transport.

Great subject matter, but quite unreadable
Being an expert in a given field is one thing. Being able to express your expertise in a book that will appeal to people is quite another thing. Obviously, few people share Kreuzer's knowledge of non-equilibriumthermodynamics. This book underscores that statement rather well: onlyspecialists in mathematical physics will be able to read and grasp itssubject matter. This is most unfortunate, since Kreuzer's choice of thingsto include in the book is excellent. Extensive and rigorous expositionsabout key phenomena like Benard convection are coupled to a careful andeven more rigorous treatment of the statistical foundations of N.E.T. Giventhe importance of topics like these, it really is unfortunate that only ahandful of people will actually learn something from this well-intendedbook. ... Read more

Product Description
Univ. of Hannover, FRG. Topics include history of modern genetics in Germany, biosynthesis of triterpenoid saponins in plants, enzyme catalysis in reverse micelles, and microbial sensors on a respiratory basis for wastewater monitoring. Includes free link to online articles. ... Read more

Product Description
This digital document is an article from Canadian Journal of History, published by University of Saskatchewan on April 1, 2004. The length of the article is 829 words. The page length shown above is based on a typical 300-word page. The article is delivered in HTML format and is available in your Amazon.com Digital Locker immediately after purchase. You can view it with any web browser.

Citation Details
Title: Experiment, Models, Paper Tools: Cultures of Organic Chemistry in the Nineteenth Century.(Book Review)
Author: Trevor H. Levere
Publication: Canadian Journal of History (Refereed)
Date: April 1, 2004
Publisher: University of Saskatchewan
Volume: 39Issue: 1Page: 214(2)

Article Type: Book Review

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Product Description
This is a reproduction of a book published before 1923.This book may have occasional imperfections such as missing or blurred pages, poor pictures, errant marks, etc. that were either part of the original artifact, or were introduced by the scanning process.We believe this work is culturally important, and despite the imperfections, have elected to bring it back into print as part of our continuing commitment to the preservation of printed works worldwide.We appreciate your understanding of the imperfections in the preservation process, and hope you enjoy this valuable book. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (7)

love this book
This is a beautiful collection of shirts and photos.I think the people who are overly critical just don't get what the author was going for.Love this book.A must have for anyone who loves Hawaiian shirts.

...not for the historically accurate collector.
While this book does show some nice photos, it fails to deliver accurate information. The dates on MANY of the shirts are off by about 10 years or so and the book does very little to help the serious collector or anyone with more than just a passing interest. A much more informative book is 'Hawaii Unbuttoned' by Craig Callaway.

It's "ukulele" NOT "ukelele"
I agree with the other reviews so I won't duplicate that. The author really should've gotten his facts -- and spelling -- right before publishing. He had a great opportunity to put out a good and wanted product, but he blew it. I was thinking maybe it's better than nothing, but no, I'd rather have nothing. Thank goodness there are more things available now.

Pretty pictures; not terribly informative
I've been told Steele's take on history is somewhat spotty; I'm not an expert so I can't confirm or deny that.To be honest, I've never even read the text.But the photos are numerous and great; there are over 125 full shirts in full color, many of them full-page as well.That makes the book perfect as an painting resource, which is what I use it for.If you're a fabric designer, costumer or artist, or just dreaming of the islands in their jet-set days of Lana Turner and Elvis Presley, this book is a good resource.

Great pictures, bad historically
Apparently the author was a collector on the US mainland since he apparently did not do much historical research in Hawaii. The dates are usually off about ten years. Also from his book you'd think all Hawaiiproduced were rayon shirts when cottons, in Asian prints, have been mostcommon! ... Read more

Product Description
Like new. Paperback. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

Great Service!
I initially ordered the wrong edition of this text (Lesson:Be VERY careful when making your purchases from Amazon; note the correct edition of your text!I inadvertently ordered the 5th instead of 6th edition of this book) needless to say I was frantic to get the 6th edition in order to be able to fully participate in the History class I'd taken.The book came overnight and all was again well with the world... Or at least MY world anyway!

Valuable Resource
In this anthology, Chafe and Sitkoff have collected a number of articlesthat are critical in understanding the major issues in American historyduring the past 50 years. Despite the broad thematic scope ofessays--ranging from post-war foreign policy to the creation of an"urban underclass" during the Reagan administration--theorganization and careful editing of the book provide the reader with aclear understanding of America's recent sociopolitical transitions. Thelucid and well-written individual essays, submitted by leading historiansand well-known political figures, work particularly well alongside thedocuments and commentaries they are paired with. ... Read more

Product Description
The uses of computers in chemistry are many and varied, from the modelling of solid state systems to the design of complex molecules which can be used as drugs. This text provides an introduction to the many methods currently used by practising computational chemists and shows the value of computers in modern chemical research. The authors describe the various computational techniques available and explain how they can be applied to single molecules, to assemblies of molecules, and to molecules undergoing reaction. An introductory chapter outlines the hardware and software available, and looks at some applications and developments. Subsequent chapters cover quantum mechanics, molecular mechanics, statistical mechanics, the modelling of biomolecules, and drug design. While emphasizing the use of computers to model biological systems, the authors explain how the methods can be applied to a wide range of chemical problems. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

Conceptual, not practical foundation
What this book does, it does reasonably well. Its real strength is in the basic quantum mechanical principles that bind atoms and that cause molecualr interactions.

The authors carry this forward, using concise mathematics, to derive electron distributions and small-scale molecular conformations. The third chapter addresses conformations of larger molecules, starting with rigorous computations of each conformation's energy, then backing down to some approximation techniques. The fourth chapter packs in a number of concepts, prehaps too many: solvation, statistical mechanics, and a little bit of molecular mechanics. Chapter five skims over protein and DNA folding, and chapter 6 discusses small-molecule (drug) interactions with proteins.

Although the authors start the book noting the intense computational requirements, they never give explicit techniques for performing those computations efficiently. The math is the abstract form, close to the quantum mechanics, and rarely the form of a practical computation. In fact, the math is abstract enough that I'd be hard pressed to come up with real limits of integration in many cases. The authors make some effort to use their equations to support intuitive understanding, but sometimes focus too much on the formulas themselves instead of their meanings.

I can't fault the book for being written in 1995 - by the standards of computational chemistry, that's a bit dated now. Still, almost all of its references date from 1990 or earlier. They weren't the freshest even when the book was written.

The book does give a broad view, high-level survey of the quantum mechanical view of chemistry. It omits many more modern practices though: finite element approximations to molecule structure, grammar-based analysis of RNA folding, and Markov models for structure prediction. It also omits the knowledge needed to reduce abstract physics to practical calculations. Use this as an introductory survey, but use other books for knowledge you can put to work.

A concise introduction to Comp. Chem.
This small booklet is an excellent introduction to computational chemistry for the novice. Provides an easy to read, description of the field, its methods, applications and utilization. Covers everything: 'ab initio' quantum mechanics, molecular mechanics and dynamics, modelling of biological macromolecules with a short introduction to sequence analysis, QSAR and computational pharmacology.
While it won't provide an in-depth view of the methods, it manages to convey enough detail to understand the basics. A must have for anyone desiring to enter the exciting field of Molecular Modelling. ... Read more

Product Description
Originally published in 1907.This volume from the Cornell University Library's print collections was scanned on an APT BookScan and converted to JPG 2000 format by Kirtas Technologies.All titles scanned cover to cover and pages may include marks notations and other marginalia present in the original volume. ... Read more