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University of California Press

Out of Our Minds

What We Think and How We Came to Think It
by Felipe Fernández-Armesto (Author)
Hardcover Paperback eBook
Publication Date: Oct 2020
Edition: 1st Edition
Title Details:
Rights: United States
Pages: 480
ISBN: 9780520377509
Trim Size: 6 x 9
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About the Book

"A stimulating history of how the imagination interacted with its sibling psychological faculties—emotion, perception and reason—to shape the history of human mental life."—The Wall Street Journal

To imagine—to see what is not there—is the startling ability that has fueled human development and innovation through the centuries. As a species we stand alone in our remarkable capacity to refashion the world after the picture in our minds.
 
Traversing the realms of science, politics, religion, culture, philosophy, and history, Felipe Fernández-Armesto reveals the thrilling and disquieting tales of our imaginative leaps—from the first Homo sapiens to the present day. Through groundbreaking insights in cognitive science, Fernández-Armesto explores how and why we have ideas in the first place, providing a tantalizing glimpse into who we are and what we might yet accomplish. Unearthing historical evidence, he begins by reconstructing the thoughts of our Paleolithic ancestors to reveal the subtlety and profundity of the thinking of early humans. A masterful paean to the human imagination from a wonderfully elegant thinker, Out of Our Minds shows that bad ideas are often more influential than good ones; that the oldest recoverable thoughts include some of the best; that ideas of Western origin often issued from exchanges with the wider world; and that the pace of innovative thinking is under threat. 

About the Author

Felipe Fernández-Armesto is an award-winning historian and the author of several bestselling books, including 1492, Ideas that Changed the World, and The Americas. He lives in Indiana and is a professor of history at the University of Notre Dame.

Table of Contents

List of Illustrations
Preface and Acknowledgments

1. Introduction
2. Travel, Exploration, and Occupation
3. Living and Dying
4. Drives, Emotions, and Moods
5. Things, Sounds, and Spectacles
6. Communicating and Commanding
7. Charisma,Cannabis, and Crossing Africa:
Explorers in the Land of Friendship
8. Making Knowledge: The Senses and Cognition
9. Making Sense: Knowledge and Understanding
10. Presence and Representation
11. Epilogue

Appendix: Expeditions
Notes
Bibliography
Index

Reviews

“Opposing a lemming-like rush to despair, this scholar concludes by suggesting pluralism as paradoxically 'the one doctrine that can unite us.' How long cherished diversity resists the imperious convergence of a monoculture remains to be seen, or feared. For conformity silences our imaginations.”
— PopMatters
"Mr. Fernandez-Armesto offers a stimulating history of how the imagination interacted with its sibling psychological faculties—emotion, perception and reason?—to shape the history of human mental life."
— Wall Street Journal
"A fascinating, and provocative, global history of ideas . . . Essential."
— CHOICE
"Beginning with cognitive science, this global survey sweeps through leaps of thought from prehistory to today — a journey from unification to uncertainty, lit by minds such as China’s fourth-century-bc master of paradox Hui Shi and paradigm-smashing mathematician Henri Poincaré. Today, Fernández-Armesto argues, the trend is shifting as our homogenized ‘global culture’ threatens the very exchanges that spark heroic ideas."
— Nature
“[Out of Our Minds] covers the range of human ideas, from prehistoric man’s preoccupations to artificial intelligence. But the focus is on topics like the emergence of scientific truth and democracy—themes that seem under threat today, with talk of 'fake news' and authoritarians on the march.”
— The Economist
“Out of Our Minds covers the range of human ideas, from prehistoric man’s preoccupations to artificial intelligence. But the focus is on topics like the emergence of scientific truth and democracy—themes that seem under threat today, with talk of 'fake news' and authoritarians on the march.”
— Economist
“Out of Our Minds is more than a clever title. It plays with human self-importance and takes us down a peg or two. Fernández-Armesto has a love/hate relationship with our intellectual history and works out his frustrations in superb detail.”
— Sydney Morning Herald
“An outline of ideas runs the risk of being cursory — one damn intellectual after another — but [Armesto’s] easy flow from thinker to thinker, economics to ethics, microbes and their mutations to climate, means that there’s variety and interest all along the way. He’s usefully judgmental: he has a personal take on existentialism and the youth culture of the Sixties, for instance. What we get here is an urbane and civilised observer, broad in his sympathies, mildly distrustful of religion, very distrustful of certainties and enthusiastic about pluralism. You may not always agree with him, but he’s very good company.”
— Evening Standard
"Rich in content and interpretive brio that will appeal to general readers interested in the history of ideas."
— Middle Journal
"Written with zing and flair, and a willingness to provoke, Out of Our Minds is a sparkling account of how imagination and ideas have shaped the strange history of Homo sapiens over more than two thousand years."—David Christian, author of Origin Story: A Big History of Everything

"With its majestic sweep, this refreshing book covers a great many subjects with considerable authority. Felipe Fernández-Armesto is a gifted writer, guiding the reader through subtleties without failing to illustrate his complex ideas with a telling example."—Daniel Lord Smail, author of On Deep History and the Brain

"Brilliant and profound, Out of Our Minds is a masterly survey of humanity’s unique imaginative leaps, from hominid cannibalism to our current global convergence. Fernández-Armesto is the leading practitioner of big history, and here he takes on no less than the entire span of human history. Gone are the great men, replaced instead by the ideas—good and bad—that have made us human. Written with his trademark panache and wry humor, this book challenges every assumption you’ve ever had about who we are and where we came from."—Jerry Brotton, author of A History of the World in 12 Maps

Praise for the Felipe Fernández-Armesto's previous books:

"Our America is perhaps the first history to make the case for this nation’s becoming a bright Latin American country. . . . The narrative moves easily from panoramic views and exemplary cases to interpretation and reflection. . . . Fernández-Armesto dutifully deals with this changing landscape, writing with detail and gusto."—New York Times Book Review, on Our America

"Students and politicians alike could benefit from the scholarship of Fernández-Armesto. We owe him a debt of gratitude for deepening our comprehension of Hispanics in the US—how they came to be here and how their shared narrative has shaped our nation."—Janet Napolitano, Wall Street Journal Book Review, on Our America

"In this readable history, Fernández-Armesto has written a book of travels not unlike those of Marco Polo, filled with marvels and sensations, rich in description and replete with anecdote. 1492 is a compendium of delights."—The Times, London on1492

"Few scholars are as qualified as Fernández-Armesto to write a history of exploration. . . . He has the breadth of knowledge and depth of understanding necessary to do justice to so formidable a topic. The result is a brilliant and readable book. Pathfinders is an illuminating and, at times, stirring examination of the divergence and convergence of cultures, a rich study of humankind’s restless spirit. As intimate as Alexander the Great’s deathbed wish and as vast as human migration, this book explains who we are as much as what we have done."—New York Times Book Review, on Pathfinders

Awards

  • CHOICE Outstanding Academic Titles 2019 2019, Choice