Items related to The Island of the Colorblind

The Island of the Colorblind

 
9780679452485: The Island of the Colorblind
View all copies of this ISBN edition:
 
 
At once intensely personal and intellectually exhilarating, The Island of the Colorblind gives us a fascinating, intimate understanding of Oliver Sacks' unique vision. By the author of Awakenings and An Anthropologist On Mars. Simultaneous hardcover release from Knopf. 2 cassettes.

"synopsis" may belong to another edition of this title.

Review:
In his books An Anthropologist on Mars and The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat, Oliver Sacks details the lives of patients isolated by neurological disorders, shedding light on our common humanity and the ways in which we perceive the world around us. Now he looks at the effects of physical isolation in The Island of the Colorblind. On this journey, he carried with him the intellectual curiousity, kind understanding, and unique vision he has so consistently demonstrated.

Drawn to the Micronesian island of Pingelap by reports of a community of people born totally colorblind, Dr. Sacks set up a clinic in a one-room dispensary. There he listened to patients describe their colorless world in terms rich with pattern and tone, luminance and shadow. Then, in Guam, he investigated a puzzling neurodegenerative paralysis, making housecalls amid crowing cockerels, cycad jungles, and the remains of a colonial culture. The experience affords Sacks an opportunity to elaborate on such personal passions as botany and history and to explore the meaning of islands, the dissemination of species, the birth of disease, and the nature of deep geologic time.

From the Publisher:
"With aplomb, Sacks wears many hats -- cultural anthropologist, naturalist, explorer, ethnographer, neuroscientist -- as he delves into the islands' volcanic origins, their archeological wonders, their unique flora and fauna, their bloody colonial history under Spanish and German rule, their still active indigenous myths. As a travel writer, Sacks ranks with Paul Theroux and Bruce Chatwin. As an investigator of the mind's mysteries, he is in a class by himself."
-Publisher's Weekly

"About this title" may belong to another edition of this title.

  • PublisherRandom House
  • Publication date1997
  • ISBN 10 0679452486
  • ISBN 13 9780679452485
  • BindingAudio Cassette
  • Rating

(No Available Copies)

Search Books:



Create a Want

If you know the book but cannot find it on AbeBooks, we can automatically search for it on your behalf as new inventory is added. If it is added to AbeBooks by one of our member booksellers, we will notify you!

Create a Want

Other Popular Editions of the Same Title

9780375700736: The Island of the Colorblind

Featured Edition

ISBN 10:  0375700730 ISBN 13:  9780375700736
Publisher: Vintage, 1998
Softcover

  • 9780330526104: Island of the Colour-Blind and Cycad Island

    Picado..., 2011
    Softcover

  • 9780679451143: The Island of the Colorblind

    Knopf, 1997
    Hardcover

  • 9780330350815: The island of the colour-blind

    Picador, 1996
    Hardcover

  • 9780676970357: The Island Of The Colorblind

    Knopf ..., 1997
    Hardcover

Top Search Results from the AbeBooks Marketplace