From Neuromythology to Neuroscience: Cortex and Mind: Unifying Cognition. Joaquin Fuster. 2003. New York: Oxford University Press. 294 pp., $47.95 (HB)

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Cortex end Mind by Joaquin Fuster is the best book in the field I have read since Higher Cortical Functions by Alexander Luria. It is a book of similar scope and ambition, but reflecting the Zeitgeist of the beginning of the twenty-first century, rather than that of the middle of the twentieth century. I cannot think of anything of this importance and conceptual clarity written in between. It is also a very European book, decidedly about the forest and not about the trees, and infused with the sort of intellectual romanticism that our prevailing empiricist mores tend to eschew with almost embarrassed incomprehension. As a student of Luria and a fellow European, I can relate to all of the above. The logic, the philosophy and the general intellectual bent behind the book resonate so closely with my own, that I felt that I could have written this book, but not nearly as well or with this degree of professional erudition. As in his previous books, Fuster's ability to inject a certain kind of elegance and verve in the discussion of even the most arcane technical matters makes Cortex and Mind not just an enlightening read but also an enjoyable one.