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Behave: The Biology of Humans at Our Best and Worst
New York Times bestseller - Winner of the Los Angeles Times Book Prize - One of the Washington Post's 10 Best Books of the Year
"It's no exaggeration to say that Behave is one of the best nonfiction books I've ever read." --David P. Barash, The Wall Street Journal "It has my vote for science book of the year." --Parul Sehgal, The New York Times "Immensely readable, often hilarious...Hands-down one of the best books I've read in years. I loved it." --Dina Temple-Raston, The Washington Post From the bestselling author of A Primate's Memoir and the forthcoming Determined: A Science of Life Without Free Will comes a landmark, genre-defining examination of human behavior and an answer to the question: Why do we do the things we do? Behave is one of the most dazzling tours d'horizon of the science of human behavior ever attempted. Moving across a range of disciplines, Sapolsky--a neuroscientist and primatologist--uncovers the hidden story of our actions. Undertaking some of our thorniest questions relating to tribalism and xenophobia, hierarchy and competition, and war and peace, Behave is a towering achievement--a majestic synthesis of cutting-edge research and a heroic exploration of why we ultimately do the things we do . . . for good and for ill.
"It's no exaggeration to say that Behave is one of the best nonfiction books I've ever read." --David P. Barash, The Wall Street Journal "It has my vote for science book of the year." --Parul Sehgal, The New York Times "Immensely readable, often hilarious...Hands-down one of the best books I've read in years. I loved it." --Dina Temple-Raston, The Washington Post From the bestselling author of A Primate's Memoir and the forthcoming Determined: A Science of Life Without Free Will comes a landmark, genre-defining examination of human behavior and an answer to the question: Why do we do the things we do? Behave is one of the most dazzling tours d'horizon of the science of human behavior ever attempted. Moving across a range of disciplines, Sapolsky--a neuroscientist and primatologist--uncovers the hidden story of our actions. Undertaking some of our thorniest questions relating to tribalism and xenophobia, hierarchy and competition, and war and peace, Behave is a towering achievement--a majestic synthesis of cutting-edge research and a heroic exploration of why we ultimately do the things we do . . . for good and for ill.
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Community Reviews
This was a huge venture of a book about the neurobiology and psychology behind aggression. Since I came from a neuropsych background, I actually knew a lot of what he talked about in the book already (especially in the 2nd half where he focused more on psychology), but it was still a nice refresher for me. Predictably, I found the psych sections more interesting since that's my area of interest, but it was overall a really well rounded detailed book about aggression, from genes and cells all the way to the environment and social influences.
It's definitely a huge effort to read this book though. It's sold as a textbook on Amazon for a reason. Someone could definitely teach a course based on this book in a semester. You do learn a lot, but you have to be dedicated to reading it, especially if you're (like me) more interested in the psychology and less in the neuroscience. I definitely got the big ideas of the book, but there were so many details that I don't know if I can remember everything that I read now. I liked that at the end of each chapter, he summed up the main ideas though. That helped a lot.
Anyway, definitely recommend this to anyone interested in the neuropsychology behind aggression and anger, especially if you're down for a lot of hard science and have the time to read this entire thing. He writes in a pretty readable fashion, and I never felt like I was confused or lost despite all the information he was throwing at me, which is always appreciated in a book about science. YAY SCIENCE!
It's definitely a huge effort to read this book though. It's sold as a textbook on Amazon for a reason. Someone could definitely teach a course based on this book in a semester. You do learn a lot, but you have to be dedicated to reading it, especially if you're (like me) more interested in the psychology and less in the neuroscience. I definitely got the big ideas of the book, but there were so many details that I don't know if I can remember everything that I read now. I liked that at the end of each chapter, he summed up the main ideas though. That helped a lot.
Anyway, definitely recommend this to anyone interested in the neuropsychology behind aggression and anger, especially if you're down for a lot of hard science and have the time to read this entire thing. He writes in a pretty readable fashion, and I never felt like I was confused or lost despite all the information he was throwing at me, which is always appreciated in a book about science. YAY SCIENCE!
I found this book to be very good and technical. Quite often, I lacked focus to concentrate on the studies as the terminology used and descriptions of the neurotransmitters to the body path felt somewhat of a lengthy lecture. I liked how the author related the examples and attempted to simplify the explanations. It felt like more like my own personal struggle for this read.
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