Author: Scott Stossel File Type: epub A riveting, revelatory, and moving account of the authors struggles with anxiety, and of the history of efforts by scientists, philosophers, and writers to understand the condition As recently as thirty-five years ago, anxiety did not exist as a diagnostic category. Today, it is the most common form of officially classified mental illness. Scott Stossel gracefully guides us across the terrain of an affliction that is pervasive yet too often misunderstood. Drawing on his own long-standing battle with anxiety, Stossel presents an astonishing history, at once intimate and authoritative, of the efforts to understand the condition from medical, cultural, philosophical, and experiential perspectives. He ranges from the earliest medical reports of Galen and Hippocrates, through later observations by Robert Burton and Sren Kierkegaard, to the investigations by great nineteenth-century scientists, such as Charles Darwin, William James, and Sigmund Freud, as they began to explore its sources and causes, to the latest research by neuroscientists and geneticists. Stossel reports on famous individuals who struggled with anxiety, as well as on the afflicted generations of his own family. His portrait of anxiety reveals not only the emotions myriad manifestations and the anguish anxiety produces but also the countless psychotherapies, medications, and other (often outlandish) treatments that have been developed to counteract it. Stossel vividly depicts anxietys human tollits crippling impact, its devastating power to paralyzewhile at the same time exploring how those who suffer from it find ways to manage and control it. My Age of Anxiety is learned and empathetic, humorous and inspirational, offering the reader great insight into the biological, cultural, and environmental factors that contribute to the affliction.**From BooklistStarred Review Stossel, editor of the Atlantic magazine, is a very nervous man trying awfully hard not to be. I have since the age of about two been a twitchy bundle of phobias, fears, and neuroses. He suffers from lots of physical symptoms and a panoply of phobias (most notably, a fear of vomiting). Im like Woody Allen trapped in John Calvin, he confesses. Psychotherapy, multiple medications, and alcohol provide incomplete relief. He ponders the possible causes of panic attacks and anxiety a strong genetic component, environmental influences, and childhood upbringing. He wonders whether anxiety is purely a psychological problem or something elsea medical disease, spiritual disorder, cultural phenomenon, or evolutionary survival mechanism. For a layperson, he has considerable knowledge about prescription anti-anxiety drugs (perhaps based on three decades of using them). Tying together notions about anxiety culled from history, philosophy, religion, sports, and literature with current neuropsychiatric research and his extensive personal experience, Stossels book is more than an astounding autobiography, more than an atlas of anxiety. His deft handling of a delicate topic and frustrating illness highlights the existential dread, embarrassment, and desperation associated with severe anxiety yet allows room for resiliency, hope, and transcendence. Absolutely fearless writing. --Tony Miksanek From Bookforum I always used to feel sorry for myself, having suffered four debilitating episodes of clinical depression and many years of moderate-to-severe dysthymia. No longer. In fact, I feel rather fortunate not to be Scott Stossel, editor of The Atlantic, whose lifetime of psychic agonysuffering is too weak a wordis chronicled in excruciating, enthralling detail in My Age of Anxiety. [] Stossell manages to describe the most painful and embarassing experiences in a style that is candid but not melodramatic, heartrending but not self-pitying, wry but not cute. The book is not quite [...] a work of art. But it is an extraordinary literary performance nonetheless. [] In an age inundated by memoirs and psychic self-help books, My Age of Anxiety is the rare memoir that tells an entirely compelling story and the rare self-help book that really helps. You, and many thousands of readers along with you, will laugh until you cry. George Scialabba

Author: Michio Kaku File Type: pdf Beyond Einstein takes readers on an exciting excursion into the discoveries that have led scientists to the brightest new prospect in theoretical physics today -- superstring theory. What is superstring theory and why is it important? This revolutionary breakthrough may well be thefulfillment ofAlbert Einsteins lifelong dream of a Theory of Everything, uniting the laws of physics into a single description explaining all the known forces in the universe. Co-authored by one of the leading pioneers in superstrings, Michio Kaku, and completely revised and updated with the newest groundbreaking research, the book approaches scientific questions with the excitement of a detective story, offering a fascinating look at the new science that may make the impossible possible.From Library JournalRecently, the superstring theory, which asserts that all physical matter consists of extraordinarily minute vibrating strings, has been touted as the route to the long-sought unified theory of forces some proponents call it a theory of the universe that will bring fundamental physics research to a closure. The first author of the present book is a researcher in the field who offers here one of the earliest superstring presentations for lay readers. The beginning chapters offer a not-very-good history of early 20th century physics, but the remainder of the work becomes livelier and more convincing as it approaches Dr. Kakus own area of expertise. On the whole this is a fairly successful introduction to a new and exciting scientific area. Jack W. Weigel, Univ. of Michigan Lib., Ann Arbor 1987 Reed Business Information, Inc. Review`he does a pretty decent job of explaining some of the truly mind-boggling ideas now being kicked around by physicists eleven-dimensional superstrings, membranes in sub-sub-atomic space, mathematical super-symmetry ... But by managing to tie up all this heavy stuff to the real-life people who dream it up, Kaku and Thompson make it an absorbing read ... after reading this book, you should be able to impress your mates by having an opinion of your very own. Robert Matthews, Focus