Synopses & Reviews
Humans live in landscapes of make-believe. We spin fantasies. We devour novels, films, and plays. Even sporting events and criminal trials unfold as narratives. Yet the world of story has long remained an undiscovered and unmapped country. Itand#8217;s easy to say that humans are and#8220;wiredand#8221; for story, but
why?
In this delightful and original book, Jonathan Gottschall offers the first unified theory of storytelling. He argues that stories help us navigate lifeand#8217;s complex social problemsand#8212;just as flight simulators prepare pilots for difficult situations. Storytelling has evolved, like other behaviors, to ensure our survival.
Drawing on the latest research in neuroscience, psychology, and evolutionary biology, Gottschall tells us what it means to be a storytelling animal. Did you know that the more absorbed you are in a story, the more it changes your behavior? That all children act out the same kinds of stories, whether they grow up in a slum or a suburb? That people who read more fiction are more empathetic?
Of course, our story instinct has a darker side. It makes us vulnerable to conspiracy theories, advertisements, and narratives about ourselves that are more and#8220;truthyand#8221; than true. National myths can also be terribly dangerous: Hitlerand#8217;s ambitions were partly fueled by a story.
But as Gottschall shows in this remarkable book, stories can also change the world for the better. Most successful stories are moraland#8212;they teach us how to live, whether explicitly or implicitly, and bind us together around common values. We know we are master shapers of story. The Storytelling Animal finally reveals how stories shape us.
Review
"A brilliant, witty, and altogether satisfying book." New York Times Book Review
Review
"An excellent book full of wit and wisdom and sound judgment." Boston Globe Book Review
Review
"An exciting book, certain to produce argument." Atlantic Monthly
Review
"Somebody finally got it right. Pinker's thoroughly modern, totally engaging book introduces lay readers to the science of language in ways that are irreverent and hilarious while coherent and factually sound." Leila Gleitman, University of Pennsylvania, President, Linguistic Society of America
Review
An "
insightful consideration of all things story."
and#8212;Library Journal "A lively pop-science overview of the reasons why we tell stories and why storytelling will endure..[Gottschall's] snapshots of the worlds of psychology, sleep research and virtual reality are larded with sharp anecdotes and jargon-free summaries of current research... Gottschall brings a light tough to knotty psychological matters, and heand#8217;s a fine storyteller himself."
and#8212;Kirkus Reviews "They say we spend multiple hours immersed in stories every day. Very few of us pause to wonder why. Gottschall lays bare this quirk of our species with deft touches, and he finds that our love of stories is its own story, and one of the grandest tales out thereand#8212;the story of what it means to be human."
and#8212;Sam Kean, author of The Disappearing Spoon: And Other True Tales of Madness, Love, and the History of the World from the Periodic Table of the Elements "Story is not the icing, itand#8217;s the cake! Gottschall eloquently tells you and#8216;how comeand#8217; in his well researched new book."
and#8212;Peter Guber, CEO, Mandalay Entertainment and author of the #1 New York Times bestseller, Tell To Win "This is a quite wonderful book. It grips the reader with both stories and stories about the telling of stories, then pulls it all together to explain why storytelling is a fundamental human instinct."
and#8212; Edward O. Wilson, University Research Professor and Honorary Curator in Entomology, Harvard University "The Storytelling Animal is a delight to read. It's boundlessly interesting, filled with great observations and clever insights aboutand#12288;television, books, movies, videogames, dreams, children, madness, evolution, morality, love, and more. And it's beautifully writtenand#8212;fittingly enough, Gottschall is himself a skilled storyteller."
and#8212;Paul Bloom, Professor of Psychology at Yale and author of How Pleasure Works "Like the magnificent storytellers past and present who furnish him here with examples and inspiration, Jonathan Gottschall takes a timely and fascinating but possibly forbidding subject and#8212; the new brain science and what it can tell us about the human story-making impulse and#8212; and makes of it an extraordinary and absorbing intellectual narrative. The scrupulous synthesis of art and science here is masterful; the real-world stakes high; the rewards for the reader numerous, exhilarating, mind-expanding."
and#8212;Terry Castle, Walter A. Haas Professor in the Humanities, Stanford University
Synopsis
The classic book on the development of human language by the world's leading expert on language and the mind.
In this classic, the world's expert on language and mind lucidly explains everything you always wanted to know about language: how it works, how children learn it, how it changes, how the brain computes it, and how it evolved. With deft use of examples of humor and wordplay, Steven Pinker weaves our vast knowledge of language into a compelling story: language is a human instinct, wired into our brains by evolution. The Language Instinct received the William James Book Prize from the American Psychological Association and the Public Interest Award from the Linguistics Society of America. This edition includes an update on advances in the science of language since The Language Instinct was first published.
Synopsis
"A brilliant, witty, and altogether satisfying book." -- New York Times Book Review
The classic work on the development of human language by the world's leading expert on language and the mind
In The Language Instinct, the world's expert on language and mind lucidly explains everything you always wanted to know about language: how it works, how children learn it, how it changes, how the brain computes it, and how it evolved. With deft use of examples of humor and wordplay, Steven Pinker weaves our vast knowledge of language into a compelling story: language is a human instinct, wired into our brains by evolution.
The Language Instinct received the William James Book Prize from the American Psychological Association and the Public Interest Award from the Linguistics Society of America. This edition includes an update on advances in the science of language since The Language Instinct was first published.
Synopsis
This classic study of the development of the human language explains how language works, how it is learned, how it has evolved, and argues that language is a biological function.
Synopsis
In this classic study, the world's leading expert on language and the mind lucidly explains everything you always wanted to know about languages: how it works, how children learn it, how it changes, how the brain computes it, and how it envolved. With wit, erudition, and deft use it everyday examples of humor and wordplay, Steven Pinker weaves our vast knowledge of language into a compelling story: language is a human instinct, wired into our brains by evolution like web spinning in spiders or sonar bats.
The Language Instinct received the William James Book Prize from the American Psychological Association and the Public Interest Award from the Linguistics Society of America.
Synopsis
A provocative young scholar gives us the first book on the new science of storytelling: the latest thinking on why we tell stories, what stories reveal about human nature, what makes a story transporting, which plots and themes are universal, and what it means to have a storytelling brainand#8212;what are the implications for how we process information and think about the world?
About the Author
Jonathan Gottschall teaches English at Washington and Jefferson College and is one of the leading figures in the movement toward a more scientific humanities. The author or editor of five scholarly books, Gottschalland#8217;s work has been prominently featured in the New York Times Magazine, Scientific American, and the Chronicle of Higher Education, among others. Steven Pinker has called him "a brilliant young scholar" whose writing isandnbsp;"unfailingly clear, witty, and exciting."
Table of Contents
Prefaceand#8195;xi
The Witchery of Storyand#8195;1
The Riddle of Fictionand#8195;21
Hell Is Story-Friendlyand#8195;45
Night Storyand#8195;68
The Mind Is a Storytellerand#8195;87
The Moral of the Storyand#8195;117
Ink People Change the Worldand#8195;139
Life Storiesand#8195;156
The Future of Storyand#8195;177
Notesand#8195;201
Acknowledgmentsand#8195;213
Bibliographyand#8195;215
Creditsand#8195;231
Indexand#8195;233