A leading neuroscientist offers a history of the evolution of the brain from unicellular organisms to the complexity of animals and human beings today
Joseph LeDoux is the Henry and Lucy Moses Professor of Science, and Professor of Neural Science, Psychology, Psychiatry, and Child and Adolescent Psychiatry at New York University. He directs the Emotional Brain Institute at NYU and at The Nathan Kline Institute for Psychiatric Research, and is Deputy Director of the Max Planck-NYU Center for Language, Music, and Emotion, and a member of the National Academy of Sciences. LeDoux's books include Anxious, Synaptic Self, and The Emotional Brain, and he is a singer and songwriter in the folkrock band the Amygdaloids, and in the acoustic duo So We Are. He lives with his wife Nancy Princenthal in Brooklyn, New York.
Praise for The Deep History of Ourselves
"Readers have good reason to ponder LeDoux’s concluding challenge.
[A] refreshingly lucid treatment of profound questions.”
—Booklist (starred review)
“Plenty of popular authors describe the history of life, but LeDoux
wants readers to remember as well as enjoy, so he divides his book
into short, pithy chapters, each explaining a single evolutionary
advance. . . . Like all good educators, the author begins simply. .
. . [An] expert history of human behavior beginning at the
beginning.”
—Kirkus Reviews
"Joseph LeDoux deepens our understanding of a profound question as
old as Aristotle: how does our mind set us apart from other
species? We could not have a better guide: LeDoux is a
world-leading neuroscientist whose research has taken him to the
frontiers of behavior, emotions, and consciousness. With
brilliance, wit, and wisdom, LeDoux traces four billion years of
life, showing how humans share basic behaviors with one-celled
organisms yet soar to a reflective self-awareness that may be
unique in the universe. Utterly fascinating and a thrill to
read."
—Jeffrey D. Sachs, University Professor at Columbia University
"Joseph LeDoux is the major scientist leading the current important
effort to delineate the brain mechanisms of emotional states. In
his most recent book, The Deep History of
Ourselves, LeDoux attempts to connect the survival capacity of
single-celled micro-organisms to the unique human capacity for
survival. This capacity is importantly mediated by our ability to
think, feel, and to contemplate not only our own past and future
but the past and future of humankind. This is an extraordinary
book. Indeed, as LeDoux points out, it is a deep history of
ourselves."
—Eric R. Kandel, Kavli Professor and University Professor,
Columbia University; Senior Investigator, Howard Hughes Medical
Institute; author of In Search of Memory and The Age
of Insight; recipient of the 2000 Nobel Prize in Physiology or
Medicine
“LeDoux begins his new book with the biology of simple life forms
but ends it, at the peak of biological complexity, with a closely
argued defense of human feeling and consciousness as higher order
cognitive processes. One does not need to agree with all of his
positions―and I, for one, agree with many―to admire the quality of
his achievement and to congratulate him on it.”
—Antonio Damasio, Dornsife Professor of
Neuroscience, University of Southern California, and author
of The Strange Order of Things: Life, Feeling and the
Making of Cultures
"Joseph LeDoux has provided a remarkable, personalized synthesis of
zoology, neuroscience, psychology and philosophy: His main
theme is the emergence of consciousness through the evolution
of nervous systems and the behaviors they control: Not the
tree of life, but the tree of consciousness, and where it may
lead us. An amazing, mind-expanding read.”
—Trevor Robbins, University of Cambridge, Recipient of the 2014
Brain Prize
"This is a fascinating book with a grand vision of the evolution of
life, from its molecular origins to what it is like to be
conscious. Joseph LeDoux takes an unconventional look at some key
ideas, including new and revealing insights on how our brains
work.”
—Marian Stamp Dawkins, Professor of Animal Behaviour, University of
Oxford
"An enthralling, highly informative journey from the origins of
life itself to the emergence of creatures with sophisticated mental
lives. An indispensable perspective on how we humans come to
possess intelligence, consciousness, and emotion. From biology to
mentality, this book is a tour de force."
—Susan Schneider, NASA Chair, Library of Congress, and author of
Artificial You: AI and the Future of Your Mind
"Joseph LeDoux has written an extraordinary book full of insight,
enlightening the many ways that we humans, and along the way, other
animals, came to be the way we are. Wonderfully readable by a lay
audience, full of useful information even for other
neuroscientists."
—Daniel Levitin, PhD, FRSC, author of This Is Your Brain on
Music and The Organized Mind
"Joseph LeDoux is one of the rare scientists who sees both the
forest and the trees. This exceptionally readable
book will satisfy diverse audiences. It is a primer
on the evolution of life forms wedded to a sophisticated,
historically informed, provocative discussion of the psychological
processes that cry for illumination. An original work by
a distinguished scientist who understands both the brain
and its relation to psychological events."
—Jerome Kagan, Emeritus Professor of Psychology, Harvard
University
"The most important thing to know about consciousness is that
it evolved. In this master work, Joe LeDoux shows us not only
the big picture of that evolution, but also the critical
details of the complex nervous system that has enabled
consciousness to emerge into our lives."
—Christopher Frith, author of Making Up the Mind
“Putting ourselves in context is always a wise idea; putting
ourselves in the context of 4 billion years of history is a
perspective-altering tour-de-force. Short, appealing essays
ask 'what is consciousness?', 'what is emotion?', and, most of all,
'who am I?' The answers will surprise you.”
—Hazel Rose Markus, author of Clash! How to Thrive in a
Multicultural World
"Deep History presents the continuity in how behavior results from
biological processes in the simplest organisms to the most complex.
This supports the thesis that behavior in complex organisms such as
ourselves is due largely to processes different from those that
lead to conscious awareness. LeDoux presents all this with engaging
detail and a masterful command of the big picture, culminating in
his own theories of consciousness and of the emotions. This rich
and remarkable book is must reading for anybody interested in the
nature of life, thought, and consciousness."
—David Rosenthal, Philosophy and Cognitive Science, CUNY Graduate
Center
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