- Hardcover: 281 pages
- Publisher: Bantam Press (2 April 2001)
- Language English
- ISBN-10: 0593046498
- ISBN-13: 978-0593046494
- Product Dimensions: 23.9 x 15.7 x 3.3 cm
- Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 866,573 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
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Amazon.co.uk Review
The central assertion of The Madness of Adam and Eve, a fine essay in evolutionary neurobiology from author and scientist David Horrobin, is that the terrible disease of schizophrenia is in some ways a concomitant to the uniqueness of man. Horrobin develops his sometimes daunting argument with finesse. In plain-spoken yet never condescending prose he begins by explaining how the first man-like hominids evolved from the ancient apes, how Homo Sapiens learned to walk tall, to speak proper, and to store fat in breasts and buttocks against the days of famine. The latter step might seem minor, but it is crucial to Horrobin's thesis. He believes that it is this special human "fattiness" that causes schizophrenia in our large, fat-hungry brains (which is, incidentally, why fat-rich Western societies experience more schizotypal illness than fat-poor Third World ones). The importance of all this, according to Horrobin, is that schizophrenia is both sister and father to the remarkable creativity of man; witness all the mad or near-mad geniuses there have been: Byron, Strindberg, Einstein, Joyce, Newton, Van Gogh, Michelangelo, for example. As might be gleaned from the above, this is not the easiest of books. The science is demanding, the argumentation often dense. But it is never less than absorbing, striking, and quite refreshingly clever.--Sean Thomas
Prof. Henry H Bauer, Journal of Scientific Exploration
'The best service to readers probably is to recommend the book in the strongest possible terms.'
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Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
6 of 6 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
Quote from book - "To speak simultaneously fulfilling our need for oxygen we require very sophisticated brains for controlling our breathing and also for the complex sensory processes of hearing, understanding and remembering long strings of sound. None of the language theorists has provided mechanisms by which all these skills were simultaneously acquired"
This book has an unusual theme and that is, trying to link schizophrenia with the shaping of humanity, which after reading through its 296 pages, is quite a theory and merits looking at.
This is a very well researched book and contains a lot of information about anthropology, which can be a bore, if it's not a subject of interest to its reader. This book is layered with interesting facts obtained by scientists about the evolution of species, as it were and provides a good insight into the distant past of humans.
The way in which schizophrenia is linked with the evolution is poetic at times in its structure, and creates a very positive view on schizophrenia, with its little snippets of information, regarding the illness in some very important families it provides good reading material.
This book is not for everyone, anyone interested in anything to do with anthropology will find themselves at home, anyone who has schizophrenia or has a relative with this illness will find a nice perspective on schizophrenia. Not for everybody.
This book has an unusual theme and that is, trying to link schizophrenia with the shaping of humanity, which after reading through its 296 pages, is quite a theory and merits looking at.
This is a very well researched book and contains a lot of information about anthropology, which can be a bore, if it's not a subject of interest to its reader. This book is layered with interesting facts obtained by scientists about the evolution of species, as it were and provides a good insight into the distant past of humans.
The way in which schizophrenia is linked with the evolution is poetic at times in its structure, and creates a very positive view on schizophrenia, with its little snippets of information, regarding the illness in some very important families it provides good reading material.
This book is not for everyone, anyone interested in anything to do with anthropology will find themselves at home, anyone who has schizophrenia or has a relative with this illness will find a nice perspective on schizophrenia. Not for everybody.
5 of 6 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
A truly insightful and fascinating account of what it takes to make us human and how close that may be to what makes us mad. A clear well-written, well-rounded account - though occasionally repetitious. Despite that well worth its five stars!
Format:Paperback
I picked this book up 10 years ago from a woman selling ex-review copies for charity and twice it nearly went to the charity shop (if I've not read it by now...) but twice I read on the back "Horrobin recasts schzophrenia as the single most important factor in the victorious emergence of Homo sapiens" and decided to hang onto it. While I might require a definition of "victorious", I had to read this book which might just answer my question of "where did we go wrong?" So I did, last month, and what a joy! Written by a scientist but one who can write in an engaging and passionate way, this book weaves human (hominid) development with diet, genetics and brain biochemistry. While it might not appeal to all, it is very readable (I'd even go so far as to say a page-turner - I really did get hooked!) and the sections on biochemistry are a must-read for anyone who eats. Sadly, David Horrobin died a few years ago. He lived near Edinburgh and boy do I wish I could have met him and asked him so many more questions on this fscinating topic.
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Most Recent Customer Reviews
A Little Madness Goes a Long Way
This excellent examination of the origins of human madness as it relates to human creativity is fascinating. Read more
Published on 25 Sep 2009 by Edith Swanek
A thought provoking study of schizophrenia and human evolution
I read this book a couple of years ago. As an older sibling of someone with schizophrenia, I have read several books and articles on this subject. Read more
Published on 31 Dec 2006 by Sarah
Excellent analogies and deduction about mankind.
After reading this book, one can really understand the complexities and simplicities that the human being is capable or incapable of dealing with. Read more
Published on 21 May 2001
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