Chromatographic Analysis of Alkaloids, Vol. 53 Book

I approached this book with high hopes - after reading Iain McGilchrist's The Master and His Emissary, I was ready to dig into Stephen Hall's Wisdom: From Philosophy to Neuroscience. Almost immediately I realized I was going to be disappointed. Hall opens with a montage of dropping his daughter off at school, then watching a jet fly into the World Trade Center. "Almost immediately black smoke began to curl out of the cruel, grinning incision its wings had sliced in the façade of the skyscraper." I was reminded of Art Spiegelman's disturbing In the Shadow of No Towers (essentially the same opening) - and one graphic account is plenty. You always know a discussion is headed downhill when either Hitler or 9/11 is evoked.

The next chapter focuses on the pre-Socratics and the "Axial Age" - although "focuses" is the wrong verb. The ancient Greeks are difficult even in a more extended study; Hall's survey is a mashup. After that I started skipping through the book, reading intermittently - and realized he'd lost me. Two days after I'd bought Wisdom, it was on the "for resale" pile.

Hall is a science journalist, so my disappointment is my own fault. I'd rather have more philosophy and science, and fewer "telling" personal anecdotes. I should have read a bit more while standing in the bookstore.