Battle in the Mind Fields

In this adventurous and animated volume, Goldsmith and Laks invite us to collaborate with many forgotten and misinterpreted figures who share present passions about the importance of understanding the nature of language and the mind. Reminding us that many earlier thinkers have, in their own inspired and often idiosyncratic ways, anticipated our present directions and identified commanding alternatives, the coauthors demonstrate that the texture and content of older ideas and controversies are an indispensable and rewarding resource for contemporary research at a time of significant reevaluation for the guiding concepts, models, and methods in the field. --Farrell Ackerman, University of California, San Diego We often pay a nod to the fact that our scientific models are molded by the historical and geographic environments in which they are forged. This book provides the authoritative and compelling argumentation that linguistic theory (and, eventually, the cognitive sciences) would have been otherwise if not for Napoleon, the Gospels, positivism, geology, Eurasianism, and numerous other underappreciated currents that influenced the dissolution and re-formation of the intellectual group identities that characterize two centuries of research in the language sciences. --Andrew Nevins, University College London The research into this volume is quite breathtaking, running deeply into the nineteenth century and broadly across the disciplines to chart out the foundation upon which twentieth-century linguistics builds. [Goldsmith and Laks] give us characters and feelings as well as concepts. . . . You should read Battle in the Mind Fields. I cannot imagine any linguist, or aspiring linguist, or anyone with even a mild interest in the history of thought, not coming away feeling hugely gratified that they spent their time between the covers of this book. --Randy Allen Harris Language John Goldsmith and Bernard Laks have written a wonderful book. Original and forceful in its methodology, conscious of the challenge it represents for its potential readers, Battle in the Mind Fields is all at once convincing, coherent, and entertaining. . . . Blending methods from the history of ideas, intellectual history, sociology of science, as well as a networked approach to the study of intellectual and cultural transfers, Goldsmith and Laks successfully produce a dense, lively fresco that both demonstrates and makes the case for the resolutely interdisciplinary, transnational and contextual approach to historiography they advocate. --Patrick Flack Historiographia Linguistica Considering that this is really a book about linguistics, the attention and space it gives to other fields is unusual and impressive. I don't think there is any other work in the mind sciences that compares to the depth and breadth of this one. Battle in the Mind Fields is highly informative, rich, engaging, and a lot of fun to read. --Ida Toivonen, Carleton University