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A review by branch_c
Soul Made Flesh: The Discovery of the Brain--And How It Changed the World by Carl Zimmer
3.0
I’ve enjoyed Zimmer’s books before, and he remains the best science writer I know of who isn’t actually a scientist himself.
In this book, he attempts to describe the transition in thinking that happened in the mid to late 1600s, during which alchemy became chemistry and a mystical view of life gave way to scientific thinking about biology and anatomy. As a broad history, it often reads like a summary of notes abridged from a longer textbook. It succeeds in clearly conveying the material, but for me, the author’s usually engaging style fails to shine through as much as it should. While much of the historical information was new to me, including the significant contributions of Harvey, Willis and others, the content was a bit dry and occasionally tedious.
I found that I enjoyed the final section the most, where Zimmer brings us up to the present and comments on the work being done more recently in the area of neuroscience, while referring back to the ideas and discoveries that laid the groundwork for our modern understanding.
In this book, he attempts to describe the transition in thinking that happened in the mid to late 1600s, during which alchemy became chemistry and a mystical view of life gave way to scientific thinking about biology and anatomy. As a broad history, it often reads like a summary of notes abridged from a longer textbook. It succeeds in clearly conveying the material, but for me, the author’s usually engaging style fails to shine through as much as it should. While much of the historical information was new to me, including the significant contributions of Harvey, Willis and others, the content was a bit dry and occasionally tedious.
I found that I enjoyed the final section the most, where Zimmer brings us up to the present and comments on the work being done more recently in the area of neuroscience, while referring back to the ideas and discoveries that laid the groundwork for our modern understanding.