Rating: 
Summary: How to understand your emotions
Review: Charles Darwin wrote a book called "Expression of Emotions in Man and Animal." It was an overnight best seller when it came out a century and a half ago. But by the 1950s, Darwin's view -- that emotions have an important evolutionary base -- was in eclipse. Psychologists and anthropologists (like Margaret Mead) thought facial expressions of emotion were a product of culture.
Paul Ekman rescued Darwin's contribution with his own research in primitive areas of the world. Like Darwin and his voyage of the Beagle, Ekman took a hard look at actual data. And he's been looking ever since.
Today, Ekman is a world class expert on face and emotion. Probably THE world class expert. For instance, when the Dalai Lama wanted to know about modern research on emotion, Ekman was one of a handful of experts flown to India to give the Dalai Lama a five-day, one-on-one seminar. (See Dan Goleman's book "Destructive Emotions.")
Unlike the Dalai Lama, Ekman is not a Buddhist. But if he were it would be tempting to believe he is this generation's reincarnation of Charles Darwin. Again and again, reviewers comment "Not since Darwin..."
Ekman's current book may not turn out to be the immediate best selling blockbuster that Darwin's book was. But it certainly deserves a wide audience. It's an excellent summary of what is known about the face and feeling today. It lets the reader look over the shoulder of an active researcher. You see work in progress -- and get a peak into the future.
In short, anyone interested in understanding their own feelings -- and the feelings of others -- will find this book a readable, useful and fascinating journey. The emotions are a world be meet face-to-face every day -- yet for most of us this realm remains a mystery. This book provides a valuable roadmap.
Rating:
Summary: Darwin Update
Review: Charles Darwin wrote a book called "Expression of Emotions in Man and Animal." It was an overnight best seller when it came out a century and a half ago. But by the 1950s, Darwin's view -- that emotions have an important evolutionary base -- was in eclipse. Psychologists and anthropologists (like Margaret Mead) thought facial expressions of emotion were a product of culture.
Paul Ekman rescued Darwin's contribution with his own research in primitive areas of the world. Like Darwin and his voyage of the Beagle, Ekman took a hard look at actual data. And he's been looking ever since.
Today, Ekman is a world class expert on face and emotion. Probably THE world class expert. For instance, when the Dalai Lama wanted to know about modern research on emotion, Ekman was one of a handful of experts flown to India to give the Dalai Lama a five-day, one-on-one seminar. (See Dan Goleman's book "Destructive Emotions.")
Unlike the Dalai Lama, Ekman is not a Buddhist. But if he were it would be tempting to believe he is this generation's reincarnation of Charles Darwin. Again and again, reviewers comment "Not since Darwin..."
Ekman's current book may not turn out to be the immediate best selling blockbuster that Darwin's book was. But it certainly deserves a wide audience. It's an excellent summary of what is known about the face and feeling today. It lets the reader look over the shoulder of an active researcher. You see work in progress -- and get a peak into the future.
In short, anyone interested in understanding their own feelings -- and the feelings of others -- will find this book a readable, useful and fascinating journey. The emotions are a world be meet face-to-face every day -- yet for most of us this realm remains a mystery. This book provides a valuable roadmap.
Rating: 
Summary: Not a lot of useful information
Review: I got this book after reading Malcolm Gladwell's lovely New Yorker piece on Paul Ekman. I was looking for an accessable introduction to FACS, Ekman's facial coding system, but this book wasn't it. Emotions Revealed is perhaps too accessable, with copious fluff and very little real content.After an introduction to Ekmans work, the book is divided into chapters on each emotion. Each chapter is further subdivided into: 1) anecdotes about people feeling emotions (useless), 2) at most two pages on the facial expression associated with the emotion (the meat, if you will), 3) speculation on why you might feel the emotion (useless), and 4) suggestions on how to react if you see this emotion on others (situation dependant & therefore useless). Ekman's strength is in the clinical study of facial expression, not in writing anecdotal psychobabble. Skip this book if you already know the gist of his work.
Rating:
Summary: Not a lot of useful information
Review: I got this book after reading Malcolm Gladwell's lovely New Yorker piece on Paul Ekman. I was looking for an accessable introduction to FACS, Ekman's facial coding system, but this book wasn't it. Emotions Revealed is perhaps too accessable, with copious fluff and very little real content. After an introduction to Ekmans work, the book is divided into chapters on each emotion. Each chapter is further subdivided into: 1) anecdotes about people feeling emotions (useless), 2) at most two pages on the facial expression associated with the emotion (the meat, if you will), 3) speculation on why you might feel the emotion (useless), and 4) suggestions on how to react if you see this emotion on others (situation dependant & therefore useless). Ekman's strength is in the clinical study of facial expression, not in writing anecdotal psychobabble. Skip this book if you already know the gist of his work.
Rating:
Summary: Get the training CDs as well!
Review: The book is outstanding but you should definitely get the 2 TRAINING CDs on microexpressions, available from the website of the same name as the book.
Rating:
Summary: How to understand your emotions
Review: This is a great book for understanding what emotions are about. I recommend it highly. I also suggest you read Optimal Thinking: How to bbe your best self to learn what causes each emotion and how to make them work best for you. The book gives you incredibly simple roadmaps to understand and resolve all disturbing emotions. Read each of these books!
Rating:
Summary: WOW, Great Information for all professions
Review: This is an exceptionally well written book with ideas that would benefit all professionals. There are several concepts in this book that I personally found interesting. I highly recommend this book to all that deal with adverse environments, which of course is all of us.
Rating:
Summary: WOW, Great Information for all professions
Review: This is an exceptionally well written book with ideas that would benefit all professionals. There are several concepts in this book that I personally found interesting. I highly recommend this book to all that deal with adverse environments, which of course is all of us.
Rating:
Summary: Interesting science, but poorly organized and written.
Review: Who isn't captivated by the unspoken language of expression. Very few in science today would dispute that non-verbal expression contributes a signficant amount of "information rate transfer" in every human to human exchange. That's why I ordered this book. I was curious to know how the mechanics of non-verbal expression (manifested in the face) generally worked. Paul Ekman has been at the forefront of this research since the mid-sixties. Before ordering, I spent some time at his site (of same name as the book) and was impressed enough to do what the site pushes you to do: order the book... I was mildly dissapointed. While the book has plenty of interesting factoids, from the beginning it felt way overwritten. Almost like the author had a 24 page lesson plan and decided to stretch it out to 240 pages. In my opinion, there is allot of "fluff". Granted, some may be interested in reading 20 pages about the fact that emotions are nature (vs. nurture) across all cultures...well, that was hotly debated 20 years ago, now it's generally accepted as fact...move on. The meat of my issue with the book is that it should have been a lesson plan. My favorite part of the book is at the end when there are 14 pages of faces with barely registered emotion on them that you have to discern the meaning in. I wanted that throughout the book. If you have a particular fascination with this subject, I'd recommend ordering the CD's and using the interactive lesson plan. Skip the book. Hope this was helpful.
Rating:
Summary: Interesting science, but poorly organized and written.
Review: Who isn't captivated by the unspoken language of expression. Very few in science today would dispute that non-verbal expression contributes a signficant amount of "information rate transfer" in every human to human exchange. That's why I ordered this book. I was curious to know how the mechanics of non-verbal expression (manifested in the face) generally worked. Paul Ekman has been at the forefront of this research since the mid-sixties. Before ordering, I spent some time at his site (of same name as the book) and was impressed enough to do what the site pushes you to do: order the book... I was mildly dissapointed. While the book has plenty of interesting factoids, from the beginning it felt way overwritten. Almost like the author had a 24 page lesson plan and decided to stretch it out to 240 pages. In my opinion, there is allot of "fluff". Granted, some may be interested in reading 20 pages about the fact that emotions are nature (vs. nurture) across all cultures...well, that was hotly debated 20 years ago, now it's generally accepted as fact...move on. The meat of my issue with the book is that it should have been a lesson plan. My favorite part of the book is at the end when there are 14 pages of faces with barely registered emotion on them that you have to discern the meaning in. I wanted that throughout the book. If you have a particular fascination with this subject, I'd recommend ordering the CD's and using the interactive lesson plan. Skip the book. Hope this was helpful.
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