Testosterone rex : myths of sex, science, and society /

EVERYTHING UNDER THE HEAVENS: How the Past Helps Shape China's Push for Global Power, by Howard W. French. (Vintage, $17.) French, a former New York Times and Washington Post journalist, envisions a Chinadriven world, in which the superpower will try to recover from past humiliations. His account includes maps that show how China views the world, and considers how China's rivals should respond to its bid for dominance. NIGHT OF FIRE, by Colin Thubron. (Harper Perennial, $15.99.) A house is burning in Britain, and the fire kills all its inhabitants - among them a neurosurgeon, a priest and a photographer. The tenants share overlapping details, including themes and figures that recur across their lives. Taken together, their stories offer a meditation on collective memory, universal history and the role of society's outsiders. TESTOSTERONE REX: Myths of Sex, Science, and Society, by Cordelia Fine. (Norton, $15.95.) Fine gleefully dismantles preconceived ideas about the sexes, offering a history of how such stereotypes evolved, and questions why we get so much about gender wrong. (No, women aren't more cautious than men, and men aren't more status-obsessed than women.) Put simply: Biological sex, she writes, does not create "two kinds of people." SIX FOUR, by Hideo Yokoyama. Translated by Jonathan Lloyd-Davies. (Picador, $18.) An unresolved kidnapping is still the shame of a Japanese police department 14 years later. Yoshinobu Mikami, a former detective now working in media relations for the department, is drawn into the case amid a push to put it to rest, and is grappling with the disappearance of his own daughter when he notices aberrations in the cold investigation. The novel, the first of Yokoyama's to be translated into English, was a best seller in Japan. ANOTHER DAY IN THE DEATH OF AMERICA: A Chronicle of Ten Short Lives, by Gary Younge. (Nation Books, $15.99.) Younge reports out the lives and deaths of the 10 children and teenagers who were killed Saturday, Nov. 23, 2013. As a Briton who spent over a decade in the United States, he offers a valuable perspective: "I had skin in the game," he writes. "Black skin in a game where the odds were stacked against it." WOMAN NO. 17, by Edan Lepucki. (Hogarth, $16.) In her second novel, Lepucki examines motherhood, identity and art. In Hollywood Hills, Lady is searching for a babysitter to care for her children while she finishes her memoir, about raising a teenager who does not speak. When Esther arrives for an interview, Lady is charmed and hires her on the spot, but Esther's behavior is a performance, with a shocking twist.

Are differences between men and women the result of evolution or biology, or are they influenced by societal development? Fine (psychology, Univ. of Melbourne; Delusions of Gender) attempts to answer this question as she reviews current research on sexual differences and the role of the brain. By examining how we have historically viewed sexual differences, the author presents findings that refute many antiquated theories. The book raises questions about the impact of testosterone, which many scientists have claimed is the key to this issue. Ultimately, Fine says, there is little compelling evidence suggesting that testosterone is responsible. In her final chapter, she notes that it's natural to ask about biological reasons for differences between men and women but then argues that we should instead be asking how it is that "men and women can so often behave similarly despite their biological differences." In the end, Fine states, "it's time to stop blaming Testosterone Rex because that king is dead." Written in a lively and accessible manner, this thought-provoking read includes valuable new information on the subject. Verdict An intriguing option for those interested in the science behind sex.-Rebecca Hill, Zionsville, IN © Copyright 2016. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

A cerebral assessment of gender, society, and sexuality.Lighter and more readily accessible than her former tome on the differences between male and female brains, Delusions of Gender (2010), this book offers an impressively nuanced and balanced amalgam of research, case studies, and anecdotal material on how the hormonal monster of her title, with all its impulses and hard-wired biological processes, is an antiquated beast. In three lucidly rendered sections, Fine (Organized Psychology/Melbourne Business School) discusses outmoded principles of sexual selection based on tenets developed through early teachings of evolutionary biology, fruit fly observations, and the promiscuous male "reproductive success" paradigm espoused by British biologist Angus Bateman. Fine is most compelling when she addresses more progressive views of gender construction, the flexibility and dynamism of sex, gender socialization, and how the notion of sex differentiation encompasses much more than we previously thought. These theories are, of course, appropriately buttressed by new, eye-opening research that basically declares, "sex isn't the basic, determining factor in brain development that it is for the reproductive system"nor is it the same for male competitiveness or financial risk-taking. Throughout her book, Fine looks beyond sexuality and astutely argues that testosterone, formerly thought of as the built-in power source for top-down dominant behavior sets, is now challenged as "neither the king nor the king maker" and, in fact, readily and uniformly "reinforces an unequal status quo." The author intelligently excavates this terrain to expose pointed truths about misled gender expectations related to child care and workplace hierarchies, and she dismisses the tropes and the societal dinosaurs keeping sexual inequality afloat today. A concluding chapter on the future looks forward to the prospect of gender equality through the lens of biological sex while noting that "words are nice, but often deeds work better." A fascinating, greatly contemplative discussion of sex and gender and the embedded societal expectations of both. Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.