This book is great for reading as you are driving out West. There are so many stories that saturate our folk history of the Old West, it is hard to know what is true and what is legend. This book systematically takes a look at what is true and what is bogus, and what is grey in the areas of many old legends from the Old West.

My Dad made our family stop at every historical marker in the entire West, well at least that is what it felt like, but in doing this he instilled in me an interest in the West and how it was won, etc. This book gave me a fun, entertaining look at what is true and what is not true, I would recommend it for enjoyable reading.

What makes _Legends & Lies_ so attractive is that, as the book's foreword points out, it avoids the two traditional pitfalls of Western historical writing. Typically what we get is either fanciful types whose mantra is 'I don't care if it's true or not, that's the way I want it to have been' or cold-hearted sorts who assume that if it's being repeated as a legend, it could not possibly be true. It's hard to find authors who truly love the West and respect both legend and fact, with no desire to tear down either, and Walker is that rare type.

I like the breadth of the sources he considers. He blindly accepts no one, always putting effort into evaluating the source's credibility. The stories in the book (Sacajawea, Billy the Kid, and Custer to name a few) are ones known to anyone with a nodding acquaintance with Western history; in some cases I hadn't even realized there was a question as to what happened. He doesn't pander to political correctness, but he does recognize that it took two genders and a lot of colours to make the history of the West, and writes accordingly.

Highly recommended (by a lifetime Westerner, if it matters) to anyone interested in Western history.

This is an absolutely fascinating book. Walker brings massive research to his task, which is to look at all facets of some unsolved mysteries. For instance, did Davy Crockett survive the fight at the Alamo, at least for a brief while? Was Meriwether Lewis's death murder or suicide? And whatever became of Ambrose Bierce, the author who ventured into revolutionary Mexico and never returned?

Walker gathers evidence from surprising sources, some of them overlooked by historians, and leaves it to his readers to draw conclusions.

I heartily recommend this book to anyone who is interested in the history of the American West.

Sheehan tells the history of the war in Vietnam paralleled by a biography of one of its most colorful figures, the Army Lt. Col. and later civilian pacification leader John Paul Vann. Regardless of where you stand on this most controversial of all America's wars, this book is a must read to understand its background. Sheehan thoroughly researched the story with interviews of many key players. As a young correspondent he spent several years in country. The book raises many fascinating "counterfactual" history questions: what if military and government leaders had listened to Vann's early (1962-1963) assessment of the weaknesses of the South Vietnamese military and the Diem regime? The only weakness of the book is its abrupt ending. After Vann's death in a helicopter crash in 1972, the author fails to analyze later events including the withdrawal of U.S. troops by 1973 and the fall of South Vietnam in 1975. Writing in 1988, Sheehan should have reflected more on Vann's views and their relation to events that occurred after his death. Nonetheless, a must read for those who want to understand the most divisive war in American history.

A Bright Shining Lie is a true story about a man named John Paul Vann and America's involvement in Vietnam. The author, Neil Sheehan, was a war correspondent for the United States Press International and the New York Times. His book in 1989 was the winner of the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Award. The book starts out at Lt. Col. John Paul Vann's funeral in 1972, ten years after he arrived in Saigon, after a helicopter crash back in Vietnam. His story shows America's failures and disillusionment in Southeast Asia. In 1954, the French were defeated, Vietnam then was divided by Ho Chi Minh's Communist North and the Southern regime of Ngo Dinh Diem. Vann had an opportunity to go to Vietnam and he took it right away because he wanted to fight his way up the ranks. When he arrived he was teamed up with South Vietnam's Colonel Cao. Right away Vann notices the corruption of the South Vietnamese regime and their incompetence in fighting the Communists. Sheehan shows this throughout the book with many examples of what the South Vietnamese did. Colonel Cao was shone taking pictures of his men pretending to be dead VC's (Viet Cong) to impress the higher officials and to show that we were winning the war. The South Vietnamese army did not know what they were doing and lost many battles. As Sheehan graphically describes the battles, the Viet Cong are winning them, but that is covered up by South Vietnam and America portraying them as being the supreme force. Vann secretly told reporters how the war was a waste and Neil Sheehan was one of these reporters. The peasants in Vietnam were caught in the middle between the North and the South. We gave the peasants guns then they were seen used by the Viet Cong in battle. Sheehan noted that the corrupt South Vietnamese did not care for the peasants and carpet-bombed their villages because of known Viet Cong inhabitants. This whole book is based on Vann's telling the self-deceiving illusions of the American military and civilian bureaucracy. Vann was sent back to the United States after the army found out about his meetings with reporters. America hid the truth throughout the whole war. He then resigned, but could not stand not be in on the action. Sheehan said, "The war satisfied him so completely that he could no longer look at it as something separate from himself" (745). Later Vann was able to get a position as a civilian aid and went back to Vietnam in 1965. This is when Sheehan depicts another corrupt South Vietnamese soldier. Colonel Dinh, he resisted America's help in the war. He killed his own soldiers, did not want to help the villagers in any way and destroyed their villages. Vann's main goal was to stop this and gain the villagers trust. He ran pacification programs, mobilized allies among South Vietnamese forces, coordinated America's support and had many theories on how to turn the war around. Sheehan also wrote detailed descriptions of John Vann's family and the struggle he had with it during the war. From this the reader is able figure out why Vann always cheats on his wife. His mother, Myrtle was like this and it was a hard subject for John to talk about. In Vietnam Sheehan tells about two secret lovers of Vann. He could not control his sexual compulsion. His military career was almost ruined years earlier because of his affair with a babysitter. Sheehan writes a lot about Vann's character flaw. His wife divorces him later because of this. He was able to get all of this information with interviews of many people while his time in Vietnam as a correspondent. Vann wanted things to be done his way, he wanted to win. Sheehan said, "He was not supposed to accept defeat" (269). Sheehan talks about Westmoreland, the Commanding General in Vietnam and how he believed that the Viet Cong would not attack Saigon during "Tet" the Chinese New Year in 1968. Vann believed that they would and they did. Vann helped lead the fight against the VC and they were successful. Vann took a position in the South Vietnamese army. He served as general in command of the Central Highland Regime. President Nixon had ordered U.S. combat troops out of Vietnam in June of 1972. The U.S. said it was the South Vietnamese war and they are giving them more control. Sheehan in the story points out that the South Vietnamese had little interest in the war in the first place. Vann in 1972 had his coordinates in Kontum carpet-bombed by B-52's to try to wipe out the second, the third and the fifth divisions of North Vietnam. This was a big risk Vann was willing to take, because of the corrupt Dinh who changed orders and they were forced to retreat into a mine field as VC's advanced forward. Sheehan points out that Vann had a different outlook on the war. He was concerned now about his fighting and not the peasant revolution. Earlier he was bothered that, "...the United States could generate an astonishing reaction from the peasantry once corruption was eliminated and the American millions were getting down to the poor instead of being siphoned into the feeding trough of the Saigon hogs" (539). John Paul Vann soon died in a helicopter crash during a rain storm, ten years after he first arrived in South Vietnam. The biography by Neil Sheehan was very detailed about the war the way John Paul Vann experienced it. First as an Army Colonel and later a civilian pacification leader. Sheehan's book clearly shows the corruption of the South Vietnamese regime, their incompetence to fight Ho Chi Minh's Communists and their brutal alienation of their own people. Vann was able to bring these secrets out to reporters like Neil Sheehan to inform the public of what was going on in South Asia. This brings up the question that what if the military and government leaders had listened to Vann's earlier assessments of the weakness of the South Vietnamese military and the Diem regime? What would have been different? This book was very well written and brings much of the war right out into the light. If the reader does not have much knowledge of the war in Vietnam, this is the book to read. Vann personified our good intentions, our courage, our arrogance and are folly in the war. There is one shortcoming of the book. The book ends after Vann's death in a helicopter crash. The reader is left there wanting to know more about the events in Vietnam after his death.

"A Bright Shining Lie" is a masterfully written history of America in Vietnam. Written by Neil Sheehan, a former Southeast Asian correspondent for United Press International (UPI) and later "The New York Times," this book combines a biography of John Paul Vann, considered by some to be ". . . the one irreplaceable American in Vietnam," with a spellbinding narrative of the miscalculations, blunders, and self-deceptions which marked America's decade-plus involvement in Vietnam.

John Paul Vann's career in Vietnam spanned a decade, from its beginning in 1962 with Vann as U.S. Army Lieutenant Colonel and advisor to the South Vietnamese, to its end in 1972 with his death in a helicopter crash, Vann having become the civilian equivalent of a two-star general. During his decade in Vietnam, Vann was consistently frustrated and angry with the pusillanimous and corrupt performance of South Vietnamese forces and the frequent incompetence of American senior political and military leaders. He repeatedly urged his superiors, through normal channels and in the press, that the U.S. government could not defeat the Communist forces in South Vietnam with its military might alone. The war could only be won by the South Vietnamese with American assistance. That help, Vann recommended, should take the form of facilitating social change and providing military equipment and advice. By the time of his death, however, Vann's views had changed. After the near destruction of the Vietcong during the 1968 Tet offensive, he came to believe that America could indeed achieve a military victory in Vietnam.

Sheehan explores every aspect of Vann's life with the keen eye of the best biographers. Vann is seen at his best: possessed with a first-rate intellect and a singleness of purpose which led him to rise above a childhood filled with poverty and neglect; highly patriotic and courageous; and imbued with a strong sense of professional integrity that gave him tremendous credibility at the most senior levels of the U.S. government. Also seen is Vann's darker side: his ability to manipulate others to his ends; his dark sexual compulsions (which ultimately led him to ruin his marraige and endanger his career); his callousness toward his friends and family; and his all-consuming self-centeredness.

Interwoven with Vann's biography is a brilliant survey of the Vietnam conflict from the time of the French defeat at Dienbienphu in 1954 to Vann's death in 1972. Three areas of this book were especially interesting to me: first, the author's account of the battle of Ap Bac in 1963, where American advisors were first seriously bloodied by the Vietcong, and Vann's attitudes about the overall conduct of the war took shape; second, Vann's efforts, after his retirement from the Army, to get the U.S. government to change its Vietnam policy - and the political machinations within the government at work against him; and third, Vann's last months in Vietnam as the "civilian general" in charge of the mountains of the highlands and the rice deltas of the central coast, and the critical role he played in several key battles as America's involvement in Southeast Asia approached its tragic coda.

"A Bright Shining Lie" is certainly one of the two best single-volume histories (along with "Vietnam: A History" by Stanley Karnow) of America's involvement in Vietnam that I've read. It's an essential book for anyone wanting to learn more about America's most regrettable war.

Many of the stories in the book are very light accounts of annoying conversations: personality conflicts. The author is apparently a real straight arrow and he has endless accounts of turns of phrase and trivial happenstances that annoyed him. Like the guy who switched his cracked desk glass for John's good one. Who cares, I mean literally? There is very little insight given to the interrogation process proper, which I was expecting because that is, after all, the author's specialty. In the end you have a sense that Vietnam was fill of corrupt, drunk spooks, and one lone shiny penny -- the author.

The book starts out one story at a time and some times the thought is "why tell me about a broken desk cover" but at the end you know more about what it was really like in Laos and Vietnam. John was known as the man who would tell the truth to those in power. Now he shares it with the rest of us.

As we see the formulation of a new "homeland security agency" it is a reminder to us that the best way to get good results is pay attention to every step of the process. Our Vietnam operation had great support and many poor operations with the information results (even the good information) seeming to get lost on the way to those who needed it. The lesson I see is that all of the details are important. Bottle necks can kill.

John Sullivan's "Of Spies and Lies" is a fascinating account of wartime CIA intelligence operations in Vietnam that should be required reading not only for students of the Vietnam War, but also for anyone interested in the current war on terror. John's discussions of the difficulties an intelligence agency faces in recruiting penetrations of a difficult and dangerous enemy organization and his descriptions of problems caused by the shortage of officers with the requisite language and area knowledge bear disturbing similarities to headlines we see in the press every day. It is another illustration of the old saw that "those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it."
John's book provides a unique window into life in the CIA's Saigon Station. His description of Agency operations in Vietnam ranges from the controversy surrounding our best penetration of the Viet Cong leadership to the polygraphing of local employees over the disappearance of a few slices of ham at a party (an incident I remember quite well). John also gives unprecedented insights into the important role the Agency's requirement for polygraph vetting plays in keeping case officers, who work daily in the murky waters of spies, fabricators, and con-men, on the straight and narrow road of the pursuit of the truth. CIA polygraphers like John helped lead the way in the development of a systematic vetting process for use in the conduct of clandestine intelligence collection operations. The book illustrates how that process works and how, when the process is ignored or distorted, the entire system can quickly break down.
I served with John in Saigon Station and know his reputation as one of the Agency's best. As a former Saigon Station officer, some of his criticisms of personnel and procedures in Southeast Asia are painful, but their accuracy is incontrovertible. I highly recommend this book.

This early text might be his masterpiece or, if that's too grand, the key to the rest of the work.

You could probably retitle everything Garder wrote LIES! LIES! LIES! From the novels to the children's books, from the handbooks to the book on Chaucer. It has the properly shrill tone. It suggests what you'll find beneath the cover. A sham, a masquerade.

And it's probably his most postmodern: fragmentary, obsessed with the local, involved in pastiche, in appraisals of Mickey Spillane, in assaulting the icons of high culture (Thackeray and others), full of parody and play. Play. Play in a book by Gardner.

I have to tell you that I've taught his silly book for young writers to college students and they really can't stand it. It has the effect of shutting them up completely. It is about the poorest book on writing I have ever encountered. I'm now considering giving them this instead. They might relate to it more.

It charts the continuing development of a young writer who is urgently looking for something to believe. Desperately looking, really. Young writers might find a mirror in this. It might have the effect of comforting them.

I'm not sure how to recommend this, or to whom I should recommend it. Gardner scholars, certainly. Anyone interested in writing. Especially when that writer is, well, psychically troubled. There's a peculiarly voyeuristic angle (angel?) to this, or a psychoanalytic one, since Gardner is a very knotty, ambivalent subject.

This is a fascinating facsimile edition (with printed transcription) of a journal Gardner kept as a sophomore at Depauw University in Indiana. Well-known as the author of Grendel, The Sunlight Dialogues, Nickel Mountain, and many other books, Gardner was killed in a motorcycle accident in 1982. Even for readers who have never heard of John Gardner, the journal will be a pleasant, interesting read. In a style that is at once self conscious and sophisticated, Gardner talks about school life, his reading preferences, the options open to writers of fiction, his opinion of various writers of the tradition. Early in the journal, he recounts some of the pranks and escapades that he and his dorm-mates staged at a small college in the 1950s, a sunnier time than now to be a sophomore. The humor in Lies! Lies! Lies! is, in fact, sunny and sophomoric: "Roger Getty is a sweet fella who never did anything more malicious than blow up a dietition's (sic) automobile (in 1951). Said Harold A. Peterson to Roger Getty in the hearing of John Robert (Goose) Berry, 'This place is too quiet.' Said Roger Getty, 'Uh-huh.' Said Pete, "Somebody should short-sheet some beds, or take screws out of doorknobs, or something.'" Already, along with the youthful tone, one notes the budding novelist's instinctively right sense of dialogue.

Lies! Lies! Lies! does not confine itself to college humor, fraternity capers, and day-to-day personal events; these are in fact in the minority. Throughout the journal Gardner experiments, sometimes explicitly ("Just for fun I think I'll burlesque the passage I just quoted."), with literary forms, conventions, language, techniques. While I doubt that anyone reading the journal in 1952 would have predicted the birth of The Sunlight Dialogues twenty years later, one would certainly have observed rumblings and stirrings that moved Gardner in the direction of that major and amazing novel.

Especially in the early pages, where he writes about his college life, Gardner's journal has a characteristically moral cast, a light-hearted but notable tendency to see life in terms of rights and wrongs. His fraternity pranks are "crimes," the perpetrators of which can't be held accountable as long as Gardner can claim he was "just telling a story." Remarks such as "Somebody's naughty, I'd say" are common. Even the title page of his journal is a comically moral display, and what are his (or anyone's) novels but elaborate, extended lies? A shrewd critic might see in the journal's moral tone the foreshadowings of On Moral Fiction, the book that got Gardner into so much trouble with his fellow novelists.

The journal offers interesting, sometimes extended critical commentary on such authors of the tradition as Daniel Defoe, Henry Fielding, Jonathan Swift, and William Makepeace Thackeray, whom Gardner "hates with a beautiful, blood-dripping hate." "Reading Fielding," on the other hand, "is like going to a good play with someone who knows it well. Between the acts we have delicious commentary on the thing." Gardner also takes the time to analyze "a few of [Swift's] brilliant thrusts" and even has something to say about Mickey Spillane!

A good read in its own right, Lies! Lies! Lies! will fascinate and reward anyone with an interest in Gardner's life and work.

As a public relations major, I must say that I did not really appreciate the attack Stauber and Rampton have launched against PR. However, I understand their positions as journalists and "Toxic Sludge" is, after all, an impeccably researched and well-written book. An easy read for those who are interested.

This is a great introduction to the tactics and influence of the PR industry. It could have gone in to more depth, offered more analysis, and been more 'objective' whatever that is, but that wasn't the point. Toxic Sludge brings attention to an industry that has been manufacturing the consent of the public for corporate america and other monied interests. I think it was weakest in it's suggestions about what to do to combat the PR Industry. Their assertion that the only successful activism is NIMBYism is not only wrong but dangerous in that it doesn't lead to a larger movement to reign in corporate power. This book is a must read for anybody who wants to understand where the media is coming from and what corporations are doing to manage their image.

This is a valuable and profoundly depressing book. When I started reading it, I couldn't put it down. It describes EXACT situations I've faced personally working for the past 19 years as an local citizen environmentalist in a heavily polluted industrial region of Northeast Wisconsin. The book helped me to realize I wasn't just paranoid or "sensitive." It helped me recognize and cope with the deliberate dirty tricks, orchestrated sabotage, character assassination and obstructionism of linked corporate polluters. Most of my work has centered on counteracting the total BS coming from hundreds of high-paid PR flacks who work for these corporations. These people spend millions on local TV and newspaper ads, editorial board meetings, speaker bureaus, lobbyists at the local, state and federal level, school programs and curriculum guides, political campaign contributions, community & university goodwill grants, grants to nature centers, and scientists willing to prostitute themselves to say whatever the corporations want. They've created several "astro-turf" organizations to give the impression of citizen environmental action IN SUPPORT of the corporate goals. They've used their "astro-turf" groups to divert public attention to other issues, away from corporate pollution. I've actually seen corporate play-by-play guidebooks on how their people should discuss their problems in the most favorable light, meanwhile public health is at continued risk, and they know it.

Some previous reviewers claimed the writers were biased or somehow exaggerating, but I thought the book was remarkably calm considering the outrageousness, the evil, that the book discusses. I'm disgusted that the negative reviewers from the PR and journalism fields (especially those teaching our young people!) don't want to admit the seriousness of the corruption outlined in this book. Perhaps we should ask where their paychecks come from, and why they wrote anonymously.

Ironically, I now serve on a citizen advisory committee created by the Wisconsin Dept. of Natural Resources to set PCB soil criteria for Wisconsin, and this criteria could restrict the landspreading of PCB-contaminated sludges. The sewage treatment plant operators are going ballistic and pulling all kinds of lobbying and legal tricks to prevent the health standard from applying to them or being fully protective of public health --- because they want to keep landspreading toxic sludge on our food croplands. The paper mills have quietly gotten their own exemptions for their sludge, so far. Their PR responses fit this book perfectly, especially the chapter discussing sludge. The criteria battle in the DNR and legislature isn't over, but I predict it will be ugly and full of PR spin-doctoring.

When I first read this book in the early 80's, it profoundly changed my life. The idea that there is an innate body wisdom that guides us, physically as well as ethically and spiritually, was a revelation to me. And the fact that this body wisdom could be known through objective means was a real eye (and heart!)opener. Dr. Diamond's pioneering work with the thymus gland is the basis for much of current immunology as well as mind-body therapy and interpersonal ethics. This is a classic that everyone interested in holistic health should read -- as well as everyone who practices holistic medicine or purports to to use kinesiological testing therapeutically.

This book is a classic of its kind. Although it is probably best known for its discussion of the kinesiological muscle test, it is ultimately more important for showing that stimuli, whether physical or otherwise, effect our Life Energy constantly for better or worse. Furthermore, these effects tend to be the same for all observers: uncousciously, this painting, that food and so on all effect us the same, regardless of what we think in our conscious minds. This, of course, is a remarkable discovery, and the implications of it have been explored more fully by Dr. Diamond in many of his subsequent works. In short, this has to be one of the most important health books of the twentieth century.

I first read this book in the early 1980s, and I have referred to it ever since for its highly practical suggestions on ways to reduce stress and enhance creativity. I have also used Diamond's discussion of "Stress and Cerebral Balance" as a text in teaching communication in college courses. While I understand that the use of kinesiological testing by those not professionally trained has turned out to be a more difficult and complex matter than suggested in this early work, the results of Dr. John Diamond's research are as relevant today as they were when this book was first published in 1979. This book truly laid the groundwork for Dr. Diamond's wonderful subsequent writings, which have developed and refined his work. And here, as always, Dr. Diamond's prose is wonderful reading -- robust, down-to-earth, and entertaining!

Great to have a Japanese perspective on Japan, which does seem like a novel idea to most fans of Japanese-related literature, but because it is a collection of articles, and although Honda is clearly both brave and brilliant, it lacks cohesion and often only dusts over some of his most important points...

Very powerful collection of essays by leading Japanese writer, looks candidly, and without pulling any punches, at Japan's terrible treatment of its own minorities (the Ainu), the country's "collective amnesia" over its atrocities in World War II (in which twenty million ages were killed, along with thousands of European civilians) and "the poverty of modern Japanese political and intellectual life."

I found this an extremely compelling read - I lived in the Far EAst (Singapore and Hong Kong), and this book helped me understand Japan a little bit better - I read it while I was out there and paying visits to Japan, and I recommend it to anyone planning to visit/live there, or simply visit from the armchair.

Amazing read. Honda Katsuichi is a very impressive writer and person - he asks the reader to think about how the same kinds of crimes that Germany has admitted to are still denied in contemporary Japan! (Sadly, according to the introduction, he must travel Japan in disguise to avoid attacks from ultra-conservatives.)

This book should have been written pre-1960's so that the Eisenhower, Kennedy, and Johnson administrations could have pulled out of Vietnam before history had a chance to repeat itself. The Spanish-American War and the Philippines War are two glowing examples of how politicians, businessmen, and other characters with hidden agendas can convince and cajole a nation into conducting a costly, unnecessary war. While reading this book I was continually amazed and ashamed of the actions of our military and goverment. Started by Randolph Hearst and a host of other jounalists the war cries were spurred on by the idea of "Manifest Destiny" and American colonialism. The sinking of the Maine supplied the final straw. Off went the soldiers with bands and parades to cheer them on. But in war, although people sometimes forget, men die and soon they did. A bumbling, criminally inept military, and a host of jungle diseases nearly wiped out these unfortunate troops. But wait, there is the "Heroic" Teddy Roosevelt to pull our stones out of the fire(What a crock we have been fed). The Philippines War, an extension and forgotten episode of the Spanish-American War, illustrates how sometimes a David can slay a Goliath. Fighting with outdated guns, knives, rocks, and sticks, An "uncivilized" army nearly overcame superior firepower to gain their long sought after freedom. Sound familiar? This was a prelude to Vietnam. The book was well written. Mr. Tebbel writes as if the events are taking place as you read, a sort of "you are there" feeling. He introduces a long cast of characters and includes background info on the more important people. The first part of the book deals with our war in Cuba which saw alot of coverage by jounalists. Some of the adventures of these newspaper men (Stephen Crane et. al.) would make a great movie. The second part deals with the Philippine War which is really why I bought the book. I was disapointed more pages were not devoted to this area(About 100 pages of a 300 page book for a time period that was 5 times longer). I was also disapointed that there were no maps. Not a one. I would recommend this to any reader with an interest in American history. Mr. Tebbel did not load the book down with military jargon so the casual reader will enjoy. I think this book is a good intro into a forgotten time period, for a more in depth military account other books have to be supplemented.

I first read this book as part of research for a paper, but I would recommend it to those who are looking to gain more information about what really happened in the 92 LA riots, from the perspective that was neglected at the time.

Don't be fooled by the catchy title - this isn't a pop-psych wander through commonly-held delusions. Blending science, philosophy and psychology, Eduardo Giannetti makes a rigorous yet accessible attempt to explain precisely what goes on in our minds when we (try to) deceive ourselves, why we do it, and its consequences. Only in the fourth and final chapter does he really apply this theory to intra- and interpersonal behaviour and draw some interesting conclusions for the rule of law. Giannetti is an historian of ideas, and it shows. The scope of his research for this book is enormous. But for all the depth and breadth of its inquiry, you don't have to be a student of philosophy to appreciate it. A passing acquaintance with epistemology - especially Descartes - will smooth your path through the first two chapters, but Giannetti's skill for cogent argument, his clear examples and comprehensive end notes are enormously helpful. You come away feeling like you've had a crash-course in neuroscience, evolution, psychology and ethics, and with a long list of books you want to buy.