Who is norman cousins

He affirmed over and over again with typical optimistic spirit that human beings could do better, be better, and create better societies. And he believed that the path to a better world began with the individual. He believed in the power of the written and spoken word to make a difference in the world. His commitment to Saturday Review was rooted in this belief.

In addition to his writing, public speaking, and service with a variety of organizations, Cousins consistently made an effort as editor of Saturday Review to experience events in the making. Following a visit to the Soviet Union in , he initiated a series of cultural exchanges between Americans and Russians from many fields of endeavor that became known as the Dartmouth Conferences.

In the s Cousins had an experience that changed his life and that, at the same time, reinforced some of his deepest convictions concerning the nature of the human being. Stricken with a crippling and life-threatening collagen disease, Cousins followed a regimen of high doses of vitamin C and of positive emotions including daily doses of belly laughter , all in consultation and partnership with his sometimes skeptical physicians.

He chronicled his recovery in the best-selling Anatomy of an Illness as Perceived by the Patient: Reflections on Healing and Regeneration , published in The quest for perfectibility is not a presumption or a blasphemy but the highest manifestation of a great design.

When Cousins had a heart attack fifteen years following his earlier illness, he wondered whether it would be possible to recover from two life-threatening conditions in one lifetime, but he was determined that he would. And once again he generalized from his experience with life-threatening illness to the experience of life threatened humanity.

He was struck by the irony that all of his books on the ills of nations did not have the total readership of his one book describing his personal experience of disease and recovery, Anatomy of an Illness. Relationships and Mental Health. Today's "Medicine". Counter-Arguments to Humor's Benefits. Conclusion: Hope for a Humor-Filled Future. Works Cited. In his novel, Anatomy of an Illness , Norman Cousins describes his rigorous recovery from ankylosing spondylitis , a painful collagen illness that rendered him immobile, and at its nadir, nearly incapable of moving his jaw.

His doctor and long time friend Dr. William Hitzig put it to him bluntly: only one of every five hundred people diagnosed with this affliction fully recovers. Born in Union Hill, N. He joined the New York Evening Post as an education writer in and worked for the monthly magazine Current History. Cousins is survived by his wife of 51 years, Ellen. Norman Cousins was editor-in-chief of the Saturday Review for over 35 years. He was a tireless advocate for world peace and in his later years devoted much writing and study to the issues of illness and healing.

His journalistic career began in , when he joined the staff of the New York Evening Post. The following year he moved to Current History, which first employed him as a book critic, subsequently as managing editor. In Cousins became the Saturday Review' s executive editor, and two years later, after Stevens's resignation, he took over the editorship and presidency. In it had a circulation of roughly 20, and a reputation for an old-fashioned sort of literary aloofness.

Cousins wasted no time in converting the magazine into a more broad-based publication which devoted a great deal of space to current events. His efforts at expansion were aided by the astute business manager Jack R. Cominsky, whom Cousins hired away from the New York Times.

Cousins's spirit of advocacy was reflected in his magazine. He exemplified the liberal democratic spirit of the Roosevelt era, and his ties with the government were close. His second book, Modern Man is Obsolete , began as an editorial published in the Saturday Review only 12 days after the second atomic bomb had been dropped on Japan.

In it, he argued for a non-military use of atomic energy. He saw only one solution to this predicament—the unity of nations.

There is one way and only one way to achieve effective control of destructive atomic energy and that is through decentralized world government.