The Hidden Brain: How Our Unconscious Minds Elect Presidents, Control Markets, Wage Wars, and Save Our Lives

Refund please

Verbose! This book inspires me to write a 6000 word review that could be boiled down to 1 paragraph. The relevant content could have been covered in 150 pages if not for the author's fascination with his own fascination. I hope to find the book that this was not.

3 out of 3 people found this review helpful.

Poor science, selective examples and sugestive politics; all contribue to this books failure.

I can not dissuade anyone strongly enough from reading or buying this book. It takes a vaid concept, i.e. the Unconscious part of the human mind, and ignores the science. At least, were the science does not aggree with the authors conclusion. Furthermore, Shankar Vedantam uses an excessive amount of "human interest" examples, especially when the know facts are either inconclusive or unsupportive of his view point. His "human interest" examples oddly are uncontested and poorly documented. There is a notable lack of follow through and context to most of his examples. In addition, his examples are not investiaged in the text. Many of the examples he choses are politcally in nature and every time his conclusion support want could easy fit into a liberal polical platform.

3 out of 4 people found this review helpful.

How much do you do that you don't know you do?

Shankar Vedantam brings together several studies I had read about before and a few I did not know. The compilation in a remarkably short book consistently supports a singularly focused thesis. Every official media commentator (especially on cable and talk radio) must read his chapter on terrorism. It should be read by every one. The author's skill in mixing personal testimony with research is most on display in that chapter, just as it is in the chapter on how people vote. I must admit, I read the first chapter first, the final chapter second, then flipped around. I immediately read -out loud- to my wife at completing the chapter juxtaposing a cute little dog with the massive death rate in the Rwanda Genocide. And the chapter describing how people on one floor all survived in the 9/11 Trade Tower attacks while people on the next floor all died was disturbing. Only one change would have reversed those who lived and those who died.

Most importantly, when I applied the research he includes to myself, I found I am not quite what I think I am. It was like comparing the mental image I have of my body when I walk around and then taking a serious look at the guy in the mirror. Same guy, still likable and reasonably smart, but not fully what I want to be or think I am. Yet, the guy is still fully human. Improvements are needed, but still not really so bad.

1 out of 1 people found this review helpful.

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