Playing with Fire: The controversial career of Hans J. Eysenck Book

A mostly boring book on the exciting life of Hans Eysenck.

Eysenck, for those unaware, ranks in the pantheon of the most influential psychologists of the 20th century, and is certainly the most-cited. He was an early champion and innovator in developing the P-E-N personality inventory and the study of personality and politics, did important foundational work in behavioral therapy, and even made some minor contributions to statistics along the way. Along with his many students/collaborators he did important work on the measurement of cognitive ability through reaction time and inspection time measures and was among the first to try (mostly unsuccessfully) to link measured brain variables from an EEG with performance on intelligence tests.

Eysenck was a prolific writer of books and articles in the scientific and popular press, waded unafraid into many controversies, and, by all accounts, positively relished the thrill of public debate and attention.

All of this is described in immense detail in this book-- but in a very slow-paced and practically anesthetized fashion. As a one-stop reference to Eysenck's career, this book does a great job.

As entertainment, it is bland fare.

Besides the lackluster writing style, the author also ignored practically every aspect of Eysenck's personal life, mentioned none of his hobbies and almost never touches on the relationship Eysenck had with friends and family. I understand the book's focus on his career, but it comes at the price of being a slog to read through.