I loved this very much! The characters, the actions and even the plot itself! Very inspiring for my own book too!

I picked this up because I've always had a fascination with the brain - how can this person understand rocket science, while this person is better at literature, and how do people view (and/or value) these rather divergent types of development through their own lenses?

If you're after a very detailed, rather academic sort of book examining the ways people throughout history have viewed the brain, this is the book for you. It comes across as a bit dry, as many overviews of anything do, but it does not stray into the weeds to become completely unreadable. You do need to be ready and alert to read it in order to understand the transitions and shifts of thinking throughout history about the organ that allows us to think.

If you're a citation kind of person, this is also for you: as with other academic type books of this nature, there are loads of materials one could go find and read, if one were interested in continuing to delve into neurology and the general history of how we view the rather precious blob that sits inside our skulls.

Four stars.

Thanks to NetGalley and Perseus/Basic Books for the reading copy.

Compelling book full of facts and history!
If you're a neuroscience aficionado or just interested on knowing some new cool things, this book is for you.

One of the most descriptive, detailed, researched books on the history of neurology/neuroscience out there. This is very academic and detailed, so it reads a bit dry but is incredibly rich in both information and insight

Comprehensive Review of The Field. Cobb seems to do a spectacular job here of giving a general overview of neurotypical neuroscience, from the earliest ways man thought about his brain and cognition to the most current of state of the field in some situations - one citation in particular was from 2019! He doesn't really address neurological divergences at all, instead focusing on the brain as it is understood for most. But within what he decides to address, this book seemingly gives a very solid, very comprehensive overview of the actual science of the brain. Decently easy to follow as long as you're ready for an academic review, this book really does what it sets out to do, no more, no less. Very much recommended.

This book was written by an expert in the history of science so if you want to read a very detailed exposition on the development of  neuroscience this is your book. Sadly, since roughly 1950 the science of the brain has made little or no real progress thus this book stalls out about seventy years ago. The only fun thing that I learned from this tome is that Karl Marx believed in phrenology.