Oliver Sacks is a famed neurologist whose books of case studies combine the latest neuroscience with deep humanistic learning. He not only describes his patients with great precision, but also seeks to enter empathically into their experience and then, by means of limpid prose, to communicate it to the general reader. Ever since the publication of his book Awakenings, about patients with encephalitis lethargica who were recalled to life by the drug levodopa after decades of immobility, he has deservedly found a large and appreciative audience. He has had many imitators but no equals.
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Ciprian Ivanof
October 4th, 2008 9:54pmPlato (judging only from the Republic) noted that music played upon the emotions and that impact could lead to unwanted behavior. That seems less like an antipathy to music than a simple authoritarianism.
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John Fisher
November 14th, 2007 1:04pmHmmm. Hitler's taste in music (as in all else) was distinctly low-brow. His approval for Wagner was ideological: he didn't actually like the music.
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