Emotional Brain [Hardcover]

Joseph E. Ledoux (Author), Joseph LeDoux (Author)

Product Details

• Hardcover: 384 pages
• Publisher: Weidenfeld & Nicolson (January 1998)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0297841084
• ISBN-13: 978-0297841081
• Product Dimensions: 9.4 x 6.4 x 1.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.8 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (45 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,938,096 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Joseph LeDoux is Henry and Lucy Moses Professor of Science at New York University's Center for Neural Sciences. He is the author of Synaptic Self, The Emotional Brain: The Mysterious Underpinnings of Emotional Life and coauthor (with Michael Gazzaniga) of The Integrated Mind.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

97 of 97 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Laypersons will like it; Psychologists will NEED it..., March 17, 1998

By A Customer

This review is from: The EMOTIONAL BRAIN: THE MYSTERIOUS UNDERPINNINGS OF EMOTIONAL LIFE (Paperback)

For the layperson, LeDoux's book is an excellent account of the scientific search for understanding what emotions are and what they do. Comparing it to the several trendy books about measuring emotional intelligence isn't quite fair--this is not a self-help book that stresses the importance of good social skills (which to me, seems what emotional quotient boils down to). Instead, this book nicely weaves the best of psychological, biological, and cutting-edge neuroscientific research to give the reader a good picture of what scientists currently know about emotions and how emotions are experienced in the body and the mind. But despite the comprehensive scientific explanations, the book is extremely readable and filled with real-world implications. For a professor of neural science, LeDoux writes creatively (love those subheadings!), and I think this book can do for the study of emotions what Carl Sagan's Cosmos did for astronomy.

For psychologists, particularly psychotherapists, this book should be required reading. Despite dealing with people's emotions everyday, few therapists can give more than a basic explanation of what exactly an emotion is, and how it influences human functioning. This is partly because most textbook discussions of emotions are either too basic or too difficult, are just plain boring, or don't make the implications for therapists clear. LeDoux's book changes all that--I've reviewed several academic books, articles, and texts on understanding emotions, and kept coming back to this one. Do your graduate students (who may be groaning under the pressure of a dry neuroscience text!) a favor and make them all read The Emotional Brain--they'll be just as educated, and a lot more excited as well.

143 of 151 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A long needed book, June 10, 2002

By 

magellan (Santa Clara, CA) - See all my reviews
(HALL OF FAME REVIEWER)    (COMMUNITY FORUM 04)    (TOP 1000 REVIEWER)   

This review is from: The EMOTIONAL BRAIN: THE MYSTERIOUS UNDERPINNINGS OF EMOTIONAL LIFE (Paperback)

This book is a long-needed look at how those parts of the brain that mediate emotion, primarily the limbic system and the medial and lateral frontal cortex, affect our behavior, thinking, and our lives. This is a well-written and thoughful account for the intelligent layman about this important topic.

There are excellent discussions of the different limbic system structures as well as the frontal lobes. The sections on the amygdala I thought were especially good, and the discussions of how the frontal lobes and the limbic areas interact in various and important ways is equally good.

Unlike other important areas of science, there are few really accessible books on the brain for the non-specialist, but I've noticed the situation has improved significantly in the last 5 to 10 years. If you liked this book and want to round out your knowledge of the human brain, I can also recommend the following books, all of which are similarly well-regarded and well-written:

1. Descartes' Error: Emotion, Reason, and the Human Brain, by Antonio Damasio

2. The Language Instinct: How the Mind Creates Language, by Steven Pinker

3. Phantoms in the Brain: Probing the Mysteries of the Human Mind, by V. S. Ramachandran, Sandra Blakeslee

4. Nature's Mind: The Biological Roots of Thinking, Emotions, Sexuality, Language, and Intelligence, by Michael Gazzaniga

5. How Brains Think: Evolving Intelligences, Then & Now, by William H. Calvin

There are about a half dozen others that I could have added to this list, but I would read these first. In fact, I would start with Gazzaniga's book and then read the others, since his book is more of a general introduction, whereas the others deal more with certain special topics.

If you read these books you'll be in pretty good shape in terms of having at least a basic understanding of current neuroscience. Anyway, good luck and happy reading.

23 of 23 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Absolutely Superb, December 23, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: The EMOTIONAL BRAIN: THE MYSTERIOUS UNDERPINNINGS OF EMOTIONAL LIFE (Paperback)

This is one of the best science popularizations I have ever read. Science writers frequently have trouble finding the right voice in addressing the general reader, but in this case I found the tone perfect: lucidly written, logical, cogently argued, complete, with good narrative flow; not patronizing, not trying to grab with cheap journalistic metaphores or other strained writing designed to win over the timid. Anyone who has ever wondered about emotions-- what they are, where they come from, why we have them, what their role is in "thought", will be well rewarded for reading this book. I also found it more up to date and more accessible than the other famous book on this subject, Descartes' Error.