The Hand by Frank R Wilson

The Hand by Frank R Wilson

"A startling argument . . . provocative . . . absorbing." --The Boston Globe

"Ambitious . . . arresting . . . celebrates the importance of hands to our lives today as well as to the history of our species."
--The New York Times Book Review

The human hand is a miracle of biomechanics, one of the most remarkable adaptations in the history of evolution. The hands of a concert pianist can elicit glorious sound and stir emotion; those of a surgeon can perform the most delicate operations; those of a rock climber allow him to scale a vertical mountain wall. Neurologist Frank R. Wilson makes the striking claim that it is because of the unique structure of the hand and its evolution in cooperation with the brain that Homo sapiens became the most intelligent, preeminent animal on the earth.
In this fascinating book, Wilson moves from a discussion of the hand's evolution--and how its intimate communication with the brain affects such areas as neurology, psychology, andlinguistics--to provocative new ideas about human creativity and how best to nurture it. Like Oliver Sacks and Stephen Jay Gould, Wilson handles a daunting range of scientific knowledge with a surprising deftness and a profound curiosity about human possibility. Provocative, illuminating, and delightful to read, The Hand encourages us to think in new ways about one of our most taken-for-granted assets.

"A mark of the book's excellence is that it makes the reader aware of the wonder in trivial, everyday acts, and reveals the complexity behind the simplest manipulation." --The Washington Post

In the 1980s, Frank Wilson was a pioneer in the establishment of performing arts medicine in the United States and Europe. He was a co-founder and neurologist for the University of California, San Francisco's Health Program for Performing Artists in 1986, where his research focused on decreased hand control in musicians. In 1989, he accepted a one-year appointment as a visiting professor of neurology at the University of Düsseldorf among Germany, where he organized a research team examining focal hand dystonia in musicians. Dr. Wilson maintained his work with performing artists after returning to California in 1990, and he initiated a trial of music-learning experiences for patients in the neurological rehabilitation program at Mt. He worked as a neurologist on a multidisciplinary team at the Levi Strauss Corporation in San Francisco for two years, examining upper extremity injuries among textile designers.

In 1996, he accepted a position as the medical director of the Health Program for Performing Artists, and in 2001, he accepted a position as Clinical Professor of Neurology at Stanford University School of Medicine, where he joined a clinical research team exploring deep brain stimulation for patients with complicated movement disorders. Wilson's lifelong fascination in the neurology of human hand control is reflected in two volumes that investigate the neurological and anthropological foundations of expert hand use. Tone Deaf and All Thumbs is the first. The second, The Hand: How Its Usage Changes the Brain, Language, and Human Civilization, was released by Pantheon Books in 1998 and received a Pulitzer Prize nomination for nonfiction that year.

With the publishing of The Hand, he has presented his work and ideas to a large community of artists and educators who believe that the human hand and brain are an anatomically and behaviorally integrated system - biology's not-so-secret formula for individual human intellect, creativity, and autonomy.

SKU	Unavailable
ISBN 13	9780679740476
ISBN 10	0679740473
Title	The Hand
Author	Frank R Wilson
Condition	Unavailable
Binding Type	Paperback
Publisher	Vintage
Year published	1999-09-14
Number of pages	416
Cover note	Book picture is for illustrative purposes only, actual binding, cover or edition may vary.