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Woman: An Intimate Geography
Books: Text Books: Geography: Item 1
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Woman: An Intimate Geographyby Natalie Angier
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72 of 74 people found the following review helpful: Woman, An Intimate Geography, January 30, 2000 Reviewer:R. Peterson "International citizen" (This month? In Tbilisi, Georgia (Former Soviet Republic)) - This is one of those books that I am considering buying for every woman I know: young, old, of all creeds, races, and religions.... even after completing it I am STILL floored by its appropriate, humorous, scientific, lyrical, and profound words. It is empowering without any negativism. There is not a shread of male-bashing in this work of art. Natalie Angier is a science writer for the New York Times and her work is infused with just enough science to make all the fascinating issues she covers comprehensible to any and everyone who reads this book. She covers the female body like no one ever has, and I don't just mean the chapters on breasts, the uterus, and the ovaries, but the hormones, the menstrual cycles, nursing babies, menopause, exercise, chemistry, and the psychology of being a woman. I wish so much that this amazing piece of work had been around when I was 18 and wondering what the hell was WRONG with me! (nothing. apparently. But who can tell an 18 year old anything.... maybe if I could have read it.....). Angiers carefully weaves together the myths, the legends, the cultures, and even the misogyny from where we ALL come and gracefully and humorously meshes them with the studies, the sciences, the theories and the facts, and gives the reader an entire body of work on all of the issues about ourselves we are curious about. It is book that teaches you something fascinating about how and why you are and work and play and love. One of the themes that surrepticiously repeats in this book is the completely normal, completely natural, "you are SO ok - it's laughable to think otherwise" theme. Women are complex and complicated creatures and we owe that to this magnificent temple called the body and we now have all the evidence and joy in this book to know that.
Product Review
Despite scientific evidence to the contrary, as far as the health care profession is concerned the standard operating design of the human body is male. So when a book comes along as beautifully written and endlessly informative as Natalie Angier's Woman: An Intimate Geography, it's a cause for major celebration. Written with whimsy and eloquence, her investigation into female physiology draws its inspiration not only from scientific and medical sources but also from mythology, history, art, and literature, layering biological factoids with her own personal encounters and arcane anecdotes from the history of science. Who knew, for example, that the clitoris--with 8,000 nerve fibers--packs double the pleasure of the penis; that the gene controlling cellular sensitivity to male androgens, ironically enough, resides on the X-chromosome; or that stress hormones like cortisol and corticosterone are the true precursors of friendship?
The mysteries of evolution are not a new subject for Angier, a Pulitzer Prize-winning biology writer for the New York Times whose previous books include The Beauty of the Beastly and Natural Obsessions. The strengths of Woman begin with Angier's witty and evocative prose style, but its real contribution is the way it expands the definition of female "geography" beyond womb, breasts, and estrogen, down as far as the bimolecular substructure of DNA and up as high as the transcendent infrastructure of the human brain. --Patrizia DiLucchio
--This text refers to the
Hardcover
edition.
From Publishers Weekly
Did postmenopausal women invent the human race? Are males more similar to females than females are to males? These are among the many stimulating questions at the core of Angier's provocative "scientific fantasia of womanhood," a spirited and thoroughly informedAif admittedly biasedAstudy of how the body is "a map of meaning and freedom." Angier (The Beauty of the Beastly; Natural Obsessions) presents new theories on the evolution of women's anatomy, physiology and social behaviors. She points out, for example, that the X chromosome has a "vastly higher gene richness" than the Y, which by contrast is "a depauperized little stump," and she champions the argument of anthropologist Kristen Hawkes that the role of postmenopausal grandmothers, who could help younger females nurture their weaned but still dependent offspring, "invented youth. And in inventing childhood, they invented the human race. They created Homo imperialis, a species that can go anywhere and exploit everything." With wit and verve, Angier discusses such topics as ovulation, conception and birth; the social and physiological functions of breasts; orgasm, mate selection and child-rearing behavior; the complex workings of estrogen; hysterectomy; muscle strength; and female aggression and bonding. Her wide-ranging celebration of the female body engages the intellect but, more importantly, also offers a rigorous challenge to male-oriented theories of biology. BOMC selection; author tour.
Copyright 1999 Reed business Information, Inc.
--This text refers to the
Hardcover
edition.
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