Everyday Survival Why Smart People Do Stupid Things

Laurence Gonzales shows how modern society has made us lazy and susceptible to previously unknown threats. "Curiosity, awareness, attention," he writes. "Those are the tools of our everyday survival...we all must be scientists at heart or be victims of forces that we don't understand."

Gonzales turns his talent for gripping narrative, knowledge of the way our minds and bodies work, and bottomless curiosity about the world to the topic of how we can best use the lessons of our evolutionary history to overcome the hazards of everyday life. He finds that natural laws profoundly affect our actions, and he reveals the hidden causes and costs of our behavior, whether as individuals or as a species whose decisions may be leading to darker times. Whether you are climbing a mountain or the corporate ladder, Everyday Survivalwill change the way you view your choices in our complex, dangerous, and quickly changing world.

"A plea for heightened awareness of our surroundings, and good reading for the how-things-work set." Kirkus Reviews

Everyday Survival will teach you to make the right choices for our complex, dangerous, and quickly changing world whether you are climbing a mountain or the corporate ladder. "

"Well-written and fascinating . . . this is the kind of book you want everyone to read."--

"Curiosity, awareness, attention," Laurence Gonzales writes. "Those are the tools of our everyday survival. . . . We all must be scientists at heart or be victims of forces that we don't understand." In this fascinating account, Gonzales turns his talent for gripping narrative, knowledge of the way our minds and bodies work, and bottomless curiosity about the world to the topic of how we can best use the blessings of evolution to overcome the hazards of everyday life. will teach you to make the right choices for our complex, dangerous, and quickly changing world--whether you are climbing a mountain or the corporate ladder.

The author of the life-changing bestseller Deep Survivalonce again brings us revelations about ourselves from the cutting edge of science.

Laurence Gonzales is the author of Surviving Survival and the bestseller Deep Survival: Who Lives, Who Dies, and Why. He has won two National Magazine Awards and is a fellow of the Santa Fe Institute. His essays are collected in the book House of Pain. He lives in Evanston, Illinois.