Rating: 
Summary: Painful
Review: I borrowed this book from a freind.....no way that I would pay money for this. The Alphabet??? Come on!! Stop blaming everything else for the fact the the world isn't like you want it to be. Research is also lacking, I think some more reputible citations would be in order. Awful. Like a lobotomy.
Rating: 
Summary: Engrossing, provocative read
Review: I'm not sure that I buy that reading changes the neurochemistry of the brain. I think that there are some other ways that literacy could correlate with misogyny.In my mental model of the universe, woman traditionally have held sway in the private realm, men in the public. In pre-literate societies, the public sphere and the private sphere were probably roughly the same size. With the advent of writing, the size of the public sphere got much much bigger. Furthermore, many of the most prolific male writers -- particularly on religious issues -- were ones who did not have good relationships with women. The ones in happy relationships spent their free time at home hanging out with the wife and kids! It makes sense to me that after not much time, the written corpus would thus be dominated by men. If almost everything you read is written by men, and you value reading, it makes sense to me that this would lead to devaluing women -- even by women. Even though I am not convinced about reading causing physiological changes, this is a very interesting, provocative book that I will recommend to many people. It isn't the last word by any means, but it's a very interesting starting point.
Rating:
Summary: The worst book I have ever read
Review: This must be the worst book ever written. Not only is this book ridiculous in its purpose, but it is anti-Semitic and unfound in its conclusions. The author makes claims and assumptions that are not backed up by any evidence at all, and what is even worse than that, he makes what evidence he is using fit his claims by altering it to fit his purpose. This is a fine example of bad writing. It is academically unacceptable. I am amazed it was ever published.
Rating:
Summary: Please seek elsewhere!
Review: Shlain's thesis is fascinating, but it is severely undermined by his extremely sloppy scholarship. Issues of relative importance of hunting & gathering, the global spread of agriculture, and most especially his near-total ignorance of current biblical scholarship (just for a few examples; I could make many more) make this book problematic at best. Also, it's a wise reader who is wary of a one-size-fits-all explanation.
Rating: 
Summary: yin versus yan
Review: One of the most fascinating books I ever read. Leonard Shlain is a classy writer:"the alphabet Vs the goddess" is an encyclopedia of interesting and somewhat controversial facts presented elegantly and coherently. Nonetheless it does not give THE solution. The bicameral brain is not that defined in men and women; like its equivalent, Yin versus Yan, it is more a matter of "acquired" energies than of gender. An enlightening book and a good guide to teach any young girl how a "male's" brain works (often at her disadvantage!).
Rating: 
Summary: Thought-provoking, irritating and ultimately disappointing
Review: I really thought I was going to like this book. Shalin is (ironically) a very stylistic writer, whose affinity for the written word and the English language give his prose a luminous quality. The premise of the book is fascinating. He provides an interesting overview of Western history, and re-interprets many events and developments in light of his thesis. However. Here is a list of the ways in which this book disappointed me: 1. Near the start of the book, he says he is going to survey the available explanations for the historical developments he traces, and show why his theory is the one that explains the historical facts the best. He doesn't do this. His general approach is to show how some "bad" development followed immediately on the introduction of an alphabetic form of writing, or the printing press, or an increase in literacy. Although he says that he understands the difference between correlation and causality, in the end, he mostly presents correlations in time. 2. Along the same lines, he fails to provide any cogent analysis of what is wrong with competing theories for the rising dominance of men in Western society (he mentions the horticulture-to-agriculture shift theory, but simply dismisses it without explaining why this explanation is wrong or incomplete). 3. He takes odd little detours. I never did figure out what the chapter on Ganymede and Sappho had to do with his thesis. 4. By the end of the book, the chapters became tediously repetitious. Basically, each one consisted of a description of some heinous development in Western culture, the establishment of some time-based correlation between this development and an increase in literacy, followed by the assertion that this was further proof that alphabets cause horrible problems. 5. His entire premise relies on the equation of left brain with masculine (and thus with males), versus the right brain with feminine (and thus with females). He fails to distinguish between the social constructs of masculine/feminine and biological sex. He ignores all the studies which show that the differences within each sex (on this masculine/feminine scale) are far greater than between the sexes. 6. Whenever he encounters a woman who thrives in a "masculine" environment, he adduces this as evidence of that particular woman being co-opted by the over-emphasis on the left brain. He never seems to question the degree to which his thesis is affected by the culture in which he is located -- to what degree can he universalize a theory tied so deeply to a particular notion of masculine and feminine that come so cleary from the time and place in which he lives. Interestingly, Shalin seems to recognize the irony of his entire project (using alphabet-based writing and logical thinking to debunk the same...). Therefore, he occasionally makes a point of saying that alphabets aren't *all* bad. It's just that whenever there's an increase in alphabetic literacy, then there is a corresponding social disruption. In the end I found the book to be based on an interesting idea, but altoghter too dogmatic in expounding the idea. And this dogmatism makes the argument ultimately unpersuasive to me.
Rating:
Summary: A readable, Creative, & intellectually stimulating work!
Review: I found Alphabet VS the Goddess to be a fine synthesis of the theories of Marshall McLuhan with findings (& speculations) of brain hemishpere research and aspects of feminism. It is very well written, organized & quite intellectually stimulating. I strongly recommend it.
Rating:
Summary: Not the whole story
Review: Shlain's theory is certainly creative, but its premise is shaky. To buy into his argument, you have to believe that left-brain thinking is a masculine specialty, while the right brain is where women excel. In fact, most scientific studies have shown the opposite to be true. Women excel in spoken and written language, a left-brain activity; while men tend to do better on spatial tests, which use the right-brain. And male brains tend to be "lopsided," having a larger RIGHT hemisphere, while in women, the hemispheres are usually equal in size. A more convincing argument has been made by anthropologist Helen Fisher, among others. In societies that use the hoe for agriculture, women tend to be economically self-sufficient. A hoe is a light tool that a woman and her children can use. In societies where agriculture depends on the plow, women are at a disadvantage. Plowing is usually a man's job, sometimes even requiring the effort of more than one person. (Try controlling an ox and plow when you're seven months pregnant.) In ancient plowing societies, women and children became dependent on men's labour for their food. So the man ruled the roost (or farm, as the case may be). It was in a man's own interest to keep his wife and children dependent. He could then put the family to work farming "his" land, thus increasing his economic power. As more land was plowed, societies grew richer; armies sprang up; male gods became predominant; and patriarchy was born. The resurgance of the feminine principle in today's world is still tied to economics. In societies where women are approaching economic parity with men, women are gaining more power, respect, and control over their own lives. Where women are dependent on their husbands for their livelihood, they have fewer options. Money talks, as loudly today as it did five thousand years ago. And it spells out gender imbalances more clearly than any alphabet.
Rating:
Summary: Throughly Biased Western Civ. Bashing....
Review: Hats off the Shlain for building a historical framework around the effects of print vs. image. His thesis has at times compelling moments. However, his right hemispheric prejudice is so thoroughly biased he loses credibility. Shlain makes no effort to conceal his distaste for anything masculine, while giving wholesale endorsement to everything associated with the feminine. This one-sidedness is obvious in his preference for Sparta over Athens, his minimizing of the right brain (radio and tribal myth) Nazi movement, and his lambasting of monasticism because of its negative eugenics. All of this is very hard to fathom. For instance, even by his own estimation, Sparta did not produce a single playwright, philosopher, or historian whose words are meaningful to us today. By contrast, Athens, "produced history's greatest concentration of thinkers." [p. 52] The Nazi movement, meanwhile, Shlain infers was merely caused "at the interference between one form of communication and another." A mere footnote to the six million Jews massacred in the middle of it. [p. 405] Shlain's argument against monasticism based on the negative eugenics created because of it is undermined by his neglect to explore the same effects created female empowerment in the 20th century. Female empowerment in this century has coincided with the decline in the institution of marriage - another argument Shlain takes up against monasticism - and a decline in birth rates by educated women. This coincidence, based on Shlain's own methodology, is evidence enough for causality. But Shlain has failed to cite this, thoroughly showing once again his anti-masculine bias.
Also missing from Shlain's critique is the conflict between the ear and the eye, the effects of music, and the influence of African (oral) culture in modern America in pushing our culture toward right brain values. Nor does he care to mention any of the negative effects of our growing indifference to the printed word - like for instance, the contract in wages and income between the literate and illiterate. Shlain believes (taking McLuhan on his word) that it is the initial phase of literacy that pushes a culture towards madness and once this phase is past literacy may begin "to work its salutary wonders for a culture." [p. 431]. Taking into account that Western culture is now over 500 years past absorbing the initial shock of the printing press, why should we be so wary of the printed word at this time and so optimistic that a new golden age is at hand because of right brain hemispheric values. For all the negative effects of the printed word, Shlain is unable to cite any previous "golden era" in history where right brain values dominated. The dark ages, pre-history, the Spartans and the Nazi's hardly make for prime examples, but this is all Shlain has to offer here. To sum up, The Alphabet Vs. The Goddess: illiteracy coincides with economic and social implosion and egalitarianism between the sexes. Literacy coincides with economic and social expansion, historical achievement, periodic wars and social inequality between the sexes. There is a tradeoff here that is particularly problematic for women but one that must ultimately be weighed by everyone. For myself, I find reading a good book is tougher but more rewarding than surfing TV or the Internet. Things are worth about what you pay for them. Shlain's book has its compelling moments, but I will defend literacy and acheivement to egalitarianism and cutural decline. It's hard to believe one could argue otherwise. Again, the Dark Ages, Pre-History, Spartans and Nazi's are thoroughly unconvincing to me as success stories. Shlain, however, it seems would have us return there.
Rating:
Summary: An intense read
Review: While many of the ideas brought forth in this book made a lot of sense it brought together numerous examples that seemed to be out of place and not quite fit in. However, overall, it allowed me to take a look at how women have beent reated through the year and what role language, spoken language in particular has had in the the shaping of women's lives.
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