Tales from Both Sides of the Brain

December 22, 2014
Gazzaniga (Who’s in Charge?), who helped develop the left-right theory of the brain, tells a winding tale of a life lived in science and the joys of bringing science to the public. Gazzaniga’s work on the “split brain” case studies spanned decades, universities, and medical schools, but as he makes clear, there’s much more to a life than the pursuit of science as a career. Outside his research, Gazzaniga kept busy by organizing public debates featuring William F. Buckley Jr. and others, which led Buckley to invite him on Firing Line and to write pieces for National Review, including a spoof of the Pentagon Papers. But the substance of his work with patients is also covered in exhaustive detail that conveys how science is made: “slowly, with lots of people contributing.” Less successfully, episodes from Gazzaniga’s personal life—marriages, burials, new houses, job searches—are also included. Perhaps these show the contours of an academic life, but they read drily. Gazzaniga’s book is of great interest to those embarking on careers in pure research, and to anyone intrigued by the story of one of the greatest discoveries in cognition. Agent: John Brockman, Brockman Inc.

September 15, 2014

Sometimes called the father of cognitive neuroscience, Gazzaniga (Who's in Charge: Free Will and the Science of the Brain) was part of the team that first determined that the two different hemispheres of the brain have different strengths. Here he relates his life in science while telling us everything we'd like to know about split-brain theory.

Copyright 2014 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

Starred review from December 1, 2014
Gazzaniga may not be a household name, but he is considered one of the most important neuroscientists of our time. In this fascinating memoir, this pioneer in cognitive research offers a behind-the-scenes examination of the work he and his fellow scientists did to uncover the mysteries of the right and left brainspecifically, split-brain research aimed at discovering whether each hemisphere of the brain could learn independently of the other. Gazzaniga is a charmer. Consequently, this is not a dry scientific tome. On the contrary, the personable Gazzanigahis warmth and good humor virtually jump off the pagerecalls his life as a scientist at Caltech, Dartmouth, Cornell, and other institutions, and the ups and downs that came with it. Some biographical details are surprising. For example, Gazzaniga admits that math doesn't come easy to him and that he usually steers clear of highly technical discussions of almost everything. He is also a bit of a name-dropper. With a foreword by Steven Pinker, Gazzaniga's memoir should delight fans of the television series, The Big Bang Theory, but it will also have tremendous appeal for non-nerds, too.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2014, American Library Association.)