A review by bootman
The Idea of the Brain: The Past and Future of Neuroscience by Matthew Cobb

5.0

What a fantastic book! I've been meaning to read it for months because I love neuroscience, but I was worried the book wouldn't live up to the hype. Cobb did an incredible job diving into the history of neuroscience and how we came to learn about how the brain functions. I'm not huge into history, so the first half was kind of slow. I mainly got this book for the chapters on consciousness, neurotransmitters, how fMRI's work and more of the modern stuff. Although the first half was slow for me, it was still super interesting. I think what I loved the most about the book is that when Cobb gets to the chapters on more modern neuroscience, he discusses the debates around the different topics and explains how there's still a ton that we don't know.