Oxford Guide to the Mind by Geoffrey Underwood, Oxford University Press,
拢9.99, ISBN 0198600836
AT A little over 200 pages, Geoffrey Underwood鈥檚 Oxford Guide to the
Mind is among the more portable of the recent anthologies that attempt to
explain and unravel the mysteries of the mind. It manages to cover a
surprisingly wide range of standard issues in psychology and neuroscience, as
well as some more uncommon ones. It includes, for example, 鈥渁ccident proneness鈥�
and extrasensory perception.
Underwood has done a fine job of organising the articles鈥攚hich come
mainly from Richard Gregory鈥檚 1989 Oxford Companion to the Mind鈥�
into largely self-contained sections, and has included both an index and an
alphabetic list of entries. For a mere 拢9.99, it is a worthy addition to
any bookshelf.
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There are some important omissions, however. Language and conceptual
development receive little if any coverage, and lists suggesting further reading
would have been welcome.
The articles taken from Gregory鈥檚 volume are excellent summaries by leading
researchers. But they are now more than 10 years old, and a lot has happened in
the psychological sciences in that time. I hope that if there is a revised
edition of Underwood鈥檚 Guide that it will do more to reflect this
fact.