Dr. Eisenberg is one of the poineers of the Integartive medicine in US ( which is a fussion between the conventional and alternative therapies). Western medicine has achieved things that seemed imposible 1-2 centuries ago, but it seems to be stuck with its overly rationalistic approach toward disease...is the body functioning depending from the mind? Can attitude affect one's well- being? Could ther e be somthing that we still do not know about human physiology? Western science is just entering the realm of mind/body medicine( neuroscience), while some nations (like Chinese) have millenia long history of practicing and perfecting those methods of treatment....so why not learn to use those methods? Why not integrate them into conventional western medicine? Partly because the public and the medical proffessionals are not aware of all those options, and also because there is still some stigma in medical society about the alternative practices. Dr. Eisengberg's book disspels part of that stigma in a very easy to read, livelly and plesant style...

David Eisenberg, MD, embarked upon a pilgrimage under the auspices of Harvard to China to see if ancient medical alternatives hold new promise for Western medicine. His entrepreneurial approach is admirable and opens new possibilities for the West that have been already embraced by hundreds of millions of Chinese in some cases for many centuries. The shift in interest to Oriental medicine in the quest for new alternatives commands attention. The most critical asset for Western minds viewing Oriental medicine would seem to be an open mind. Yes, the West has made great medical strides but we don't have all the answers. Why should Western bias pre-empt potentially viable solutions that have attained credence through the tests of time and strength of following elsewhere? The Afterword in this edition suggests that Americans by the tens of millions are searching for new options, especially when patients face chronic pain thwarted by Western approaches. I congratulate Dr. Eisenberg for his creative approach and imagination and hope that appropriate testing protocol will help validate those remedies that have the greatest potential in the U.S. and elsewhere. The potential upside benefit for the quality of life of millions should drive progress on this frontier emerging in the West.

I thought that this was a very assured and informative biography of Thomas Wolfe, not only shedding light on his development and work as an author, but also bringing the reader close to getting a feel of what Wolfe the human being must have been like.

I felt that Donald, whilst being a fan of Wolfe's work, maintained a balanced assessment of him: Wolfe had highly unattractive traits - a heavy drinker, untidy and unkempt, intolerant (especially of Jews, which was ironic given the fact that he had a long relationship with Mrs Aline Bernstein, who was herself Jewish) and frequently overbearing.

Wolfe's early struggles to establish himself as a playwright and his emergence as a novelist are described in detail. Wolfe was essentially a "prose machine" unable to control the flows of words and thus the length and structure of his novels. I found the accounts of Wolfe's relationship with his editors, Maxwell E Perkins and latterly Edward C Aswell, fascinating.

A must for anyone seeking a deeper understanding of this interesting novelist.

Did you know that F. Scott Fitzgerald, Ernest Hemingway all had the same editor at Charles Scribner's and Sons: Maxwell Perkins. Some critics have said that Perkins basically wrote Tom Wolfe's last novel because it was a too-long mess that needed to be edited into a cohesive whole. I read halfway through "Look HomeWard Angel" and "Of Time and the River". Both read like a hot day in Asheville, North Carolina. When I have time I plan to go back and reread these novels because Shelby Foote and Walker Percy spoke highly of them.