The Idea of the Brain

By Matthew Cobb,

Book cover of The Idea of the Brain: The Past and Future of Neuroscience

Book description

Shortlisted for the 2020 Baillie Gifford Prize

A New Statesman Book of the Year

This is the story of our quest to understand the most mysterious object in the universe: the human brain.

Today we tend to picture it as a computer. Earlier scientists thought about it in their own…

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Why read it?

4 authors picked The Idea of the Brain as one of their favorite books. Why do they recommend it?

Not only does this book provide an up-to-date account of where science is at in terms of our basic understanding of how the brain works, but it also succeeds in putting this knowledge into a compelling history of basic discoveries. I really enjoyed this aspect of Cobb's book and tried to incorporate it into my book. 

So, I found it to be an excellent introduction to neuroscience and a great book about the process of how science progresses in jumps. It engenders real excitement in this still very lively field of study and celebrates the key advances in our conceptual…

One of the most common category errors in neuroscience is the conflation of brains with computers.

Matthew Cobb, who is both a scientist and a historian of science provides a breathtaking and sweeping history of our understanding of the brain - and how it always seems to be epitomised by humanity’s most impressive engineering achievements.

So in the 19th century, the nervous system was described as a telegraph; in the 20th and 21st century, it became a computer.

Cobb shows how these evolving metaphors helped advance neuroscience, but also how overindexing on that computer metaphor is beginning to seriously limit…

You might think history has little to tell us about a cutting edge technology like neuroscience, but you would be wrong. Cobb takes the reader through a fascinating historical excavation, illustrating how the way in which people have thought about the gray matter between their ears changed from era to era. The brain has always been conceptualized according to the cultural and technological currents of the time, shifting from a vessel for housing animal spirits to a machine to an electric battery. Today, we are accustomed to thinking of the brain as a computer; tomorrow, in the era of neuroscience,…

The Duty of Memory

By Vicki Olsen,

Book cover of The Duty of Memory

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Why am I passionate about this?

Author Air Force brat World War 2 junkie Gallivanter Beret-wearing Francophile Book hoarder

Vicki's 3 favorite reads in 2024

What is my book about?

Separating the true stories from the myths, The Duty of Memory provides a deeper understanding of the diverse motivations that drove ordinary people to join an underground network of French Resistants despite terrible odds and horrifying consequences.

This book takes the reader inside the true story of men and women who risked torture and death to help Allied airmen escape capture by the Nazis in occupied France. The story unfolds against the backdrop of war-torn France and through the lens of varied experiences that link a diverse collection of individuals who put aside ideological clashes to fight their personal battles…

The Duty of Memory

By Vicki Olsen,

What is this book about?

The Duty of Memory: An Inspiring Story of Heroic Men and Women of the French Underground Who Risked Death to Aid Allied Airmen During the Nazi Occupation . Based on personal interviews , eyewitness accounts, extensive research, and recently released archival material, comes this inspiring true story of men and women who risked death to help Allied airmen escape capture by the Nazis in occupied France. Separating the true stories from the myths, The Duty of Memory provides a deeper understanding of the multifarious motivations that inspired ordinary people to join an underground network of French Resistants despite terrible odds…


A fast-moving, endlessly fascinating, yet deeply scholarly history of how we know what we know about the brain. Cobb’s magnum opus traces how our definition of the brain has evolved over the centuries, and is still evolving now. I’ve called it a history, and it says as much on the cover of the UK version, but a good third of the book is actually about the cutting edge of neuroscience, of the marvellous ways we now have of interrogating the brain, and where they may take us in the future.

From Mark's list on how brains actually work.

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