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Editorial Reviews
From Publishers Weekly
Buchanan (Ubiquity: The Science of History) reaches out to the audience for pop social science like The Tipping Point and Freakonomics with the concept of "social physics," a scientific model for the patterns that emerge from the interactions among large groups of people. Though his observations that people excel at imitating the successful behavior of others and will often form collective bonds over such fundamental pretenses as shared ethnic heritage aren't startling, Buchanan leans on his background in theoretical physics and treats these ideas as "a quantum revolution in the social sciences." His presentation is muted by a tendency to talk around the subject, recapping prior discussions and promising future developments instead of establishing a clear, compelling thread. Though the real-life scenarios he uses to illustrate his theories—such as the unexpected revival of Times Square or the outbreak of ethnic violence in the former Yugoslavia—are engaging, some sections draw upon computer simulations of arbitrary behavior that illustrate his thesis but don't command equal interest. This is a great idea for a magazine article, but awkward at book length. (June)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
From Booklist
Buchanan, a theoretical physicist, applies the principles of physics to the study of human behavior. Think of human beings, he says, as "social atoms," interacting with other human beings according to fairly simple rules. It all comes down to patterns of behavior and to viewing human interaction from new (if sometimes slightly counterintuitive) angles. Buchanan tackles a wide variety of subjects, from genocide to fashion trends to class structure to pop culture, showing how they all can be seen as variations of the same theme: all human behavior is fundamentally the same, based on the same basic rules and, thus, often predictable. Packed with intriguing examples--such as the groundbreaking study, conducted more than 30 years ago, in which a researcher showed that racial segregation may have very little to do with actual racism--the book challenges us to reappraise everything we think we know about why we do the things we do. David Pitt
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved
See all Editorial Reviews
Buchanan (Ubiquity: The Science of History) reaches out to the audience for pop social science like The Tipping Point and Freakonomics with the concept of "social physics," a scientific model for the patterns that emerge from the interactions among large groups of people. Though his observations that people excel at imitating the successful behavior of others and will often form collective bonds over such fundamental pretenses as shared ethnic heritage aren't startling, Buchanan leans on his background in theoretical physics and treats these ideas as "a quantum revolution in the social sciences." His presentation is muted by a tendency to talk around the subject, recapping prior discussions and promising future developments instead of establishing a clear, compelling thread. Though the real-life scenarios he uses to illustrate his theories—such as the unexpected revival of Times Square or the outbreak of ethnic violence in the former Yugoslavia—are engaging, some sections draw upon computer simulations of arbitrary behavior that illustrate his thesis but don't command equal interest. This is a great idea for a magazine article, but awkward at book length. (June)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
From Booklist
Buchanan, a theoretical physicist, applies the principles of physics to the study of human behavior. Think of human beings, he says, as "social atoms," interacting with other human beings according to fairly simple rules. It all comes down to patterns of behavior and to viewing human interaction from new (if sometimes slightly counterintuitive) angles. Buchanan tackles a wide variety of subjects, from genocide to fashion trends to class structure to pop culture, showing how they all can be seen as variations of the same theme: all human behavior is fundamentally the same, based on the same basic rules and, thus, often predictable. Packed with intriguing examples--such as the groundbreaking study, conducted more than 30 years ago, in which a researcher showed that racial segregation may have very little to do with actual racism--the book challenges us to reappraise everything we think we know about why we do the things we do. David Pitt
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved
See all Editorial Reviews
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