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A review by checkplease
Monkeyluv: And Other Essays on Our Lives as Animals by Robert M. Sapolsky
4.0
Sapolsky is one of my heroes, a genius who integrates learning from various fields and applies it to questions that cut right to the heart of what makes us human. At the same time, he has a well-known gift for taking scientific findings and presenting them in accessible and engaging ways.
Though the science represented in this book is over 20 years old, I wanted to read it in advance of his new book, “Determined”. His thesis in that forthcoming work, that free will is a myth and we’d be a more just society if we accepted that, was explored more tentatively in his masterful book “Behave.” I was curious to trace the roots of this contention in these writings from earlier in his career.
There are some delightful pieces here, with his typical humor and perspicacity about scientific debates that have left his colleagues in fisticuffs. And, remarkably, some of the topics presented in this book are just getting due attention in the present, such as the negative health impacts of loneliness. If the world is going under, I want Sapolsky, or at least his words, within arm’s reach.
Though the science represented in this book is over 20 years old, I wanted to read it in advance of his new book, “Determined”. His thesis in that forthcoming work, that free will is a myth and we’d be a more just society if we accepted that, was explored more tentatively in his masterful book “Behave.” I was curious to trace the roots of this contention in these writings from earlier in his career.
There are some delightful pieces here, with his typical humor and perspicacity about scientific debates that have left his colleagues in fisticuffs. And, remarkably, some of the topics presented in this book are just getting due attention in the present, such as the negative health impacts of loneliness. If the world is going under, I want Sapolsky, or at least his words, within arm’s reach.