Description

Daniel P Todes provides concise introduction to the life and science of the great Russian physiologist Ivan Pavlov 18491936 Todes weaves together Pavlovs life values context and science by focusing upon his quest to understand the psyche and the torments of our consciousness

This introduction follows the origins and maturation of Pavlovs quest from his early life in a priestly family in provincial Riazan to his struggles and late professional success in the glittering capital of St Petersburg through the cataclysmic destruction of his world during the Bolshevik seizure of power and civil war of 19171921 to the rebuilding of his life in his 70s as a prosperous dissident during the Leninist 1920s and his success and personal torments in 19291936 during the industrialization cultural revolution and terror of Stalin times

Beyond a basic biography Todes devotes particular attention to Pavlovs Nobel Prizewinning research on digestion 18911903 and his iconic studies of conditional reflexes and higher nervous activity 19031936 as well as his experiments with dogs Todes shows that Pavlov was not a behaviorist did not use a bell and was uninterested in training dogs The Russian scientist sought to explain not merely external behaviors but the emotional and intellectual life of animals and humans