by Elizabeth Johns
Princeton, 1984
207 pp. $42.50
by Jonathan Cott
Random, 1983
327 pp. $19.95
by Jacques Barzun
Harper, 1983
344 pp. $19.95
by David S. Landes
Harvard, 1983
482 pp. $20
Diana L. Eck. Princeton, 1983.427 pp. $10.95
The city of Banaras is more than a relic of India's ancient Hindu past. As seen Eck, a Harvard professor of religion, it is a place that preserves the past "like a pal- impsest," the older layers of civilization partially visible through more recent ad-' ditions. Founded in the sixth century B.c., Banaras was physically altered by foreign invasions lasting from the 13th to the 17th centuries. But its religious signifi- cance to Hindus has remained...
By William Broad and Nicholas Wade.
Touchstone, 1983.256 pp. $6.95
Edited by Richard B. Morris.
Princeton, 1983.251 pp. $7.95
and psychoanalysis, a visitor from Mars could make little sense of much of contemporary America. He would fail to understand the cartoons of Jules Feiffer, the movies of Woody Allen, the nov- els of D. M. Thomas or Philip Roth. His grasp of U.S. politics, ed- ucation, and criminal justice would be incomplete. Psychiatry in America today is, one estimate, a $20-billion-a-year indus- try. As a professional field, it is also unkempt and overgrown, with no regular boundaries. Practitioners cannot always...
today is, by one estimate, a $20-billion-a-year indus- try. As a professional field, it is also unkempt and overgrown, with no regular boundaries. Practitioners cannot always agree on which forms of treatment "work" and which do not. And yet, ironically, in its broader social impact, psychiatry's intellectual disarray has long been irrelevant. Here, in a five-part essay, psy- chiatrist and neurologist Richard Restak surveys the state of the profession and its unusual role in American...