Finally a book that weeds through all the studies on Testosterone and provides the truth. And they make it easy for anyone to digest. This will enlighten both scientists and non scientists. Plus the authors are great story tellers. I feel smarter having read this. English I pre ordered this book based on a couple of shorter, really thought provoking pieces I read by the authors in places like NYTimes over the past year or so. Their writing is impressive, very high level and goes to extraordinary lengths to stick to just the facts. Their ideas about testosterone's heavy presence in all of our lives are thought provoking (shocking in some cases) and also somehow entirely relatable (who hasn't at some point heard some egregious thing explained away by this hormone?).It's funny that the 1 star review above says that the authors have chosen to critique well regarded studies. Maybe they didn't read carefully, but that's EXACTLY the authors' point: testosterone's role in our culture has become so ossified precisely because the original studies about it were for decades exceptionally well regarded. But that's sure to change now because what's being shown in this book is that these studies are part of the same replication crisis that so much research is struggling to rise above.The saddest part of the book is for sure the Violence chapter. To think that men and especially black men and men of color have been saddled with a natural preponderance for violence and rage is pretty depressing when thinking about what connection those studies have to the incarcerated population in the US today.The funnest part is the Power chapter, which kind of takes the mickey out of all those poor people standing in bathrooms trying to look like Wonder Woman before asking for raises (definitely not pointing any fingers here).Whether the ideas in the book rankle you or not, adjusting our eyes to these newer views of maleness and femaleness is clearly an important part of the conversation. The authors have done us all a service by going though this history with this level of thoroughness and intelligence, and humor. English
An Independent Publisher Book Awards Gold Medal Winner
“It’s stimulating fun when the assumptions and interpretations of scientific findings must undergo major revision. It’s than just fun when that revisionism concerns a subject…at the intersection of masculinity, gender, aggression, hierarchy, race, and class. This subtle, important book forces rethinking not just about one particular hormone, but about the way the scientific process is embedded in social context.”
―Robert M. Sapolsky, author of Behave
Testosterone is a familiar villain, a ready culprit for everything from stock market crashes to the overrepresentation of men in prisons. That’s a lot to pin on a simple molecule.
But your testosterone level doesn’t actually predict your competitive drive, appetite for risk, sex drive, strength, or athletic prowess. It isn’t the biological essence of manliness―in fact, it isn’t even a male sex hormone. So what is it, and how did we come to endow it with such superhuman powers? This unauthorized biography pries the much maligned T free from over a century of misconceptions.
T’s story begins long before the hormone was even isolated, when scientists first went looking for the chemical essence of masculinity. Over time, this molecule provided a handy rationale for countless behaviors―from the boorish to the enviable. Today, as competitive athletes turn to testosterone for competitive advantage, and we continue to debate what it means to be a man or woman, it is back in the news again. What we think we know about T has stood in the way of an accurate understanding of its surprising functions and effects. Rebecca Jordan Young and Katrina Karkazis focus on what T does in six domains: reproduction, aggression, risk taking, power, sports, and parenting. At once arresting and deeply informed, Testosterone lets us see the real T for the first time. Testosterone: An Unauthorized Biography : Jordan-Young, Rebecca M., Karkazis, Katrina
