Jonathan Gottschall is a distinguished research fellow in the English Department at Washington & Jefferson College. His research has been covered in the New York Times Magazine, the New York Times, Scientific American, the New Yorker, the Atlantic, the Chronicle of Higher Education, and on NPR. His blog, The Storytelling Animal, is featured at Psychology Today. His book, The Storytelling Animal, was a New York Times Book Review Editors’ Choice selection and a finalist for the Los Angeles Times Book Prize.
Publishers Weekly (starred review):
With humor, literary allusions, and a casual, unprepossessing
style, Gottschall explores such related subjects as duels,
bullying, English football, men’s “love-hate” relationship to war,
and violent entertainment from gladiator games to MMA."
Biographile:
“The Professor in the Cage is not just Gottschall's story, but
a look at the history of violence itself…. you read Gottschall
getting smarter and smarter about his subject as he gets closer and
closer to risking his life in the cage.”
Buffalo News:
“Gottschall’s writing proves much smoother and easier to digest
than the mayhem he undertakes in the cage. He buttresses his work,
as all academics do, with 35 pages of endnotes and bibliography,
attesting to the research he undertook to complement his road to
the ring. The reader learns why animals fight, why women don’t, and
why eye contact and facial expressions often win bouts before the
bell rings.”
Steven Pinker, Johnstone Professor of Psychology, Harvard
University; and author of How the Mind Works and The Better Angels
of Our Nature:
“What a charming and illuminating book! With scientific acumen and
literary panache, Gottschall immerses himself, and us, in an
ancient part of the male psyche. Among the many treats in this book
are the history of recreational fighting, a limpid explanation of
sexual selection, and a sympathetic portrayal of working-class men
that’s worthy of a great novelist.”
Sam Harris, author of the New York Times bestsellers The End of
Faith, The Moral Landscape, and Waking Up:
“Jonathan Gottschall has written a wonderfully honest,
entertaining, and insightful book about violence, manhood, courage,
and the wisdom that can be gleaned from getting punched in the
face. If you’ve ever wondered why combat is a perennial source of
fascination for us, and whether this fascination can be channeled
toward truly productive ends, The Professor in the Cage is the book
to read.”
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