The Senses By Diane Ackerman Summary

Diane Ackerman, born on October 7th 1948, is an American author and is best known for her poets, naturalist and essayist work, which explores the natural world. Dr. Ackerman first graduated with an English degree from Pennsylvania State University and later received her Master of Arts, Master of Fine Arts as well as her Ph.D. from Cornell University where she also had the privilege to teach as well as Columbia University. After graduating from University, she published numerous works of poetry and non-fiction, for which she has been awarded a National Outdoor Book Award for her book The Human Age, as well as the National Book Critics Circle Award for One Hundred Names of Love. Also, The Human Age (2014), The Zookeeper's Wife (2008), and A

The author, Dr. Ackerman, exposes the roles of each senses and beautifully demonstrates how they have the ability to make us feel many emotions and to re-live memories all at once. The book is divided into six distinct section, each providing a detailed analysis of a sense; Smell, Touch, Taste, Hearing, Vision, and Synesthesia. In each clause, she questions such things as '' Why do we kiss ? Or why does music move us? Or why do we only have 10,000 taste buds while cows have 25,000? In addition, she will go in-depth and explain the origins of each movement and sense throughout the chapters. A Natural History of The Senses answers most of our questions that we all have wondered once in our life. However, because we consider that senses are innate we tend to forget how crucial they are, but Dr. Ackerman's aim was to make people realize the importance they have on their own developments. In fact, along with University of Wisconsin, she studies the case of touch-deprived baby primates, and as a result started developing psychological issues. In addition, she explains that the consequences could be found in the physical development as well. This book presents the very foundation of humanity: the enjoyment of the senses and our ability to derive the satisfactions that are highly revealing to us and our