Behave : The Biology of Humans at Our Best and Worst
4.43 (16,628 ratings by Goodreads)
Paperback English
By (author) Robert M. Sapolsky


Categories: Crime & Criminology Science: General Issues Biology, Life Sciences Neurosciences


The New York Times Bestseller

"Its no exaggeration to say that Behave is one of the best nonfiction books Ive 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

"Hands-down one of the best books Ive read in years. I loved it." -Dina Temple-Raston, The Washington Post

Named a Best Book of the Year by The Washington Post and The Wall Street Journal

From the celebrated neurobiologist and primatologist, a landmark, genre-defining examination of human behavior, both good and bad, and an answer to the question: Why do we do the things we do?

Sapolskys storytelling concept is delightful but it also has a powerful intrinsic logic: he starts by looking at the factors that bear on a persons reaction in the precise moment a behavior occurs, and then hops back in time from there, in stages, ultimately ending up at the deep history of our species and its evolutionary legacy.

And so the first category of explanation is the neurobiological one. A behavior occurs--whether an example of humans at our best, worst, or somewhere in between. What went on in a persons brain a second before the behavior happened? Then Sapolsky pulls out to a slightly larger field of vision, a little earlier in time: What sight, sound, or smell caused the nervous system to produce that behavior? And then, what hormones acted hours to days earlier to change how responsive that individual is to the stimuli that triggered the nervous system? By now he has increased our field of vision so that we are thinking about neurobiology and the sensory world of our environment and endocrinology in trying to explain what happened.

Sapolsky keeps going: How was that behavior influenced by structural changes in the nervous system over the preceding months, by that persons adolescence, childhood, fetal life, and then back to his or her genetic makeup? Finally, he expands the view to encompass factors larger than one individual. How did culture shape that individuals group, what ecological factors millennia old formed that culture? And on and on, back to evolutionary factors millions of years old.

The result is one of the most dazzling tours dhorizon of the science of human behavior ever attempted, a majestic synthesis that harvests cutting-edge research across a range of disciplines to provide a subtle and nuanced perspective on why we ultimately do the things we do...for good and for ill. Sapolsky builds on this understanding to wrestle with some of our deepest and thorniest questions relating to tribalism and xenophobia, hierarchy and competition, morality and free will, and war and peace. Wise, humane, often very funny, Behave is a towering achievement, powerfully humanizing, and downright heroic in its own right.


Product details

Format Paperback | 800 pages
Dimensions 138 x 214 x 40mm | 692g
Publication date 01 May 2018
Publisher Penguin Putnam Inc
Imprint Penguin USA
Publication City/Country United States
Language English
Edition Statement Reprint
Illustrations note 123 B/W IMAGES AND DIAGRAMS THROUGHOUT
ISBN10 0143110918
ISBN13 9780143110910
Bestsellers rank 75,845