Motivation - The Organization of Action by Douglas G. Mook is a scientifically-based textbook on the history and study of motivation. It's important to note that it's not meant to be a self-help book. There are many, many books on the market aiming for those who need "learn how to build your motivation to accomplish a project". This book, in comparison, is a look into the history of research on motivation, and the psychological studies on how a variety of people react to a variety of situations.The book begins with the background. Socrates, Descartes, Darwin, Watson. How have great minds over the centuries looked at motivation? What were their theories? How have they built into what we understand today?Then it goes into the science. It starts with the very basic issues. Hunger. Thirst. The drive to reproduce. How do we deal with these drives? How do we manage them when there are hurdles? Next comes biology. What parts of our bodies are sending what signals?And finally, the brain assembles it all together. The book looks at our conscious, unconscious, the ways we are reinforced by others, the way we build our thought patterns.There's a lot of good information in here, and I liked the way it was presented. There seemed to be a fairly heavy leaning towards all the sexual examples, but maybe the hope was that they would keep the college-age intended audience for this actually reading. Maybe the author felt that type of content would motivate his readers to keep reading :). It did mean I was often reading bits out loud to my boyfriend.In any case, quite interesting information all around, and well presented. Just, again, be aware that this is more a "history and study of" book and not a "how to help you get motivated to run that 5k race" style book.I purchased this book with my own funds in order to take a college course.