The Man with a Shattered World: The History of a Brain Wound

Russian psychologist A. R. Luria presents a compelling portrait of a man€s heroic struggle to regain his mental faculties. A soldier named Zasetsky, wounded in the head at the battle of Smolensk in 1943, suddenly found himself in a frightening world: he could recall his childhood but not his recent past; half his field of vision had been destroyed; he had great difficulty speaking, reading, and writing.

Much of the book consists of excerpts from Zasetsky€s own diaries. Laboriously, he records his memories in order to reestablish his past and to affirm his existence as an intelligent being. Luria€s comments and interpolations provide a valuable distillation of the theory and techniques that guided all of his research. His €œdigressions€ are excellent brief introductions to the topic of brain structure and its relation to higher mental functions.