Despite its failings, Herrnstein and Murray's "The Bell Curve" is valuable for emphasizing cognition as significantly affecting human performance and social achievement; acknowledging human differences; and offering a frightening depiction of contemporary American society. The authors err in reducing intelligence to a stable, immutable…

Reviews "Human Minds: An Exploration" by Margaret Donaldson, which inquires into the diverse uses of minds, their ontogenetic development, and their histories. The two predominant themes in the book are the ontogenetic and historical development of cognition, and development of social-emotional understandings and experiences as well as…

Reviews four books: (1) "On Intelligence. . .More or Less: A Bioecological Treatise on Intellectual Development" (Stephen J. Ceci); (2) "Knowing Children: Experiments in Conversation and Cognition" (Michael Siegal); (3) "Adolescents and Their Families: Paths of Ego Development" (S. T. Hauser and others); and (4) "Adolescence: An Anthropological…