Leonard Shlain

[mono]

Over the recent past, I have read material by Leonard Shlain, an incredible non-fiction writer that, I have found, receives less credit than deserved. Has anyone else read his work?
A contemporary surgeon from California (on the southwest coast of the United States), Dr. Shlain writes on relatively broad and theoretical phenomena, combining biology, physics, aesthetics, history, mathematics, art, and both modern and ancient philosophy. I have managed to read two of his three books, The Alphabet Versus the Goddess: The Conflict Between Word and Image and Art and Physics: Parallel Visions in Space, Time, and Light, but not yet Sex, Time, and Power.
More through empiricism and theory, Shlain describes much of his theories related to neuroscience, and connecting it with trends in image and literacy, to formations in history, religion, art, and gender relations in The Alphabet Versus the Goddess.
In Art and Physics, Shlain proposes the connections through human perception, quantam physics and theory, classical and modern mathematics, and the creation of art throughout centuries, including its trends.
Has anyone else read or heard of him?

[Sitaram]

As my dear old grandmother used to constantly say, "one good post deserves another."

Actually, that is not true. She used to say many things but that was not one of them. She died long before the Internet was invented.

You have aroused my curiosity, and this is not good.

Here is an official site I found for this author:

http://www.artandphysics.com/

I shall read through it shortly.

[mono]

Since, for obvious reasons, I cannot explain Shlain's books as well as the editor, I thought to share what the back of the book prints (from The Alphabet Versus The Goddess):

This groundbreaking book proposes that the rise of alphabetic literacy - the process of reading and writing - fundamentally reconfigured the human brain, and brought about profound changes in history, religion, and gender relations. Making remarkable connections across brain function, myth, and anthropology, Leonard Shlain shows why agricultural preliterate cultures were principally informed by holistic, right-brain modes that venerated the Goddess and feminine values and images. Writing, particularly alphabets, drove cultures toward linear left-brain thinking. This shift upset the balance between men and women, initiating the decline of the feminine, and also unshered in the reign of patriarchy and misogyny. Examining the cultures of the Israelites, Greeks, Christians, and Muslims, he reinterprets many myths and parables in light of his theory. Shalin traces the effect of literacy on the Dark Ages, Mar, Gutenberg, the Reformation, and the witch hunts.
Shlain ends his book with an optimistic appraisal that the proliferation of images in film, TV, graphics, and computers is once again reconfiguring the brain by encouraging right hemispheric modes of thought and bringing about the reemergence of the feminine.
A provocative and inspiring read, this book is filled with startling historical anecdotes and fresh, compelling ideas. It is a paradigm-shattering work that will transform your view of history and the mind.

And a few words regarding Art and Physics:

Art interprets the visible world, physics charts its unseen workings - making the two realms seem completely opposed. But in Art & Physics, Leonard Shlain tracks their breakthroughs side by side throughout history to reveal an astonishing correlation of visions.
From the classical Greek sculptors to Andy Warhol and Jasper Johns, and from Aristotle to Einstein, artists have foreshadowed the discoveries of scientists, such as when Monet and Cézanne intuited the coming upheaval in physics that Einstein would initiate. In this lively and colorful narrative, Leonard Shlain explores how artistic breakthroughs could have prefigured the visionary insights of physicists on so many occasions throughout history.
Provocative and original, Art & Physics is a seamless integration of the romance of art and the drama of science . . . an exhilarating history of ideas.

[mono]

In recently cleared schedule, I finally found the time to do some bulk bookshopping, spending a little too much money, but thus proceeds the life of a devoted bookworm. Having already read Leonard Shlain's two other books, The Alphabet Versus The Goddess and Art & Physics, this afternoon I purchased his third book, Sex, Time, And Power: How Women's Sexuality Shaped Human Evolution - a seemingly random sub-title, I know, but the author always has some good points up his sleeve. Anyway, I thought to post what the back of the book prints, for anyone interested.

As in the bestselling The Alphabet Versus The Goddess, Leonard Shlain's provocative new book promises to change the way readers view themselves and where they came from. Sex, Time, And Power offers a tantalizing answer to an age-old question: Why did big-brained Homo sapiens suddenly emerge some 150,000 years ago? The key, according to Shlain, is female sexuality. Drawing on an awesome breadth of research, he shows how, long ago, the narrowness of the newly bipedal human female's pelvis and the increasing size of infants' heads precipitated a crisis for the species. Natural selection allowed for the adaptation of the female to this environmental stress by reconfiguring her hormonal cycles, entraining them with the periodicity of the moon. The results, however, did much more than encure our existence; they imbued women with the concept of time, and gave them control over sex - a power that males sought to reclaim. And the possibility of achieving immortality through heirs drove men to construct patriarchal cultures that went on to dominate so much of human history.
From the nature of courtship to the evolution of language, Shalin's brilliant and wide-ranging exploration stimulates new thinking about very old matters.

Not bad, eh?