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A review by branch_c
Behave: The Biology of Humans at Our Best and Worst by Robert M. Sapolsky
3.0
A very cool book by a wonderful writer, and it really does live up to the title, exploring human behavior from the science of neurons through evolutionary psychology, empathy, war, free will, politics, and pretty much everything in between. The writing is solid and clear but also playful and engaging, with copious footnotes that are relevant, snarky, or both. Sapolsky seems to enjoy bantering with readers as much as leading us to conclusions.
There is plenty of passionate commentary and numerous insightful thoughts from a clearly knowledgeable writer with rational and well-defended positions. As one quotable example, there is this, from the chapter on hierarchy: “We’re really out there as a species in that sometimes our high status individuals don’t merely plunder and instead actually lead, actually attempt to facilitate the common good. We’ve even developed bottom-up mechanisms for collectively choosing such leaders on occasion. A magnificent achievement. Which we then soil by having our choosing of leaders be shaped by implicit, automatic factors more suitable to five-year-olds deciding who should captain their boat on a voyage with the Teletubbies to Candyland.” (p. 476)
On the downside, the subject matter is so broad, that it makes for a lengthy and occasionally tedious read. Not that everything isn’t well-written and mostly enjoyable, but there’s just so much to cover that it can begin to seem excessive. And of course this is only a superficial treatment of some of the material; if you’ve already done more in depth reading on some of this, as I have, then you may not need or want to plow through the treatment it’s given here. Finally, Sapolsky can occasionally be stylistically repetitive, using the phrases “harks back” and “stay tuned”, for example, a few times too many each.
But overall, this is a masterful compilation of everything surrounding the subject of behavior; if you know nothing of the topic, this book touches on all aspects in enough depth to bring you up to speed on historical and current thinking.
There is plenty of passionate commentary and numerous insightful thoughts from a clearly knowledgeable writer with rational and well-defended positions. As one quotable example, there is this, from the chapter on hierarchy: “We’re really out there as a species in that sometimes our high status individuals don’t merely plunder and instead actually lead, actually attempt to facilitate the common good. We’ve even developed bottom-up mechanisms for collectively choosing such leaders on occasion. A magnificent achievement. Which we then soil by having our choosing of leaders be shaped by implicit, automatic factors more suitable to five-year-olds deciding who should captain their boat on a voyage with the Teletubbies to Candyland.” (p. 476)
On the downside, the subject matter is so broad, that it makes for a lengthy and occasionally tedious read. Not that everything isn’t well-written and mostly enjoyable, but there’s just so much to cover that it can begin to seem excessive. And of course this is only a superficial treatment of some of the material; if you’ve already done more in depth reading on some of this, as I have, then you may not need or want to plow through the treatment it’s given here. Finally, Sapolsky can occasionally be stylistically repetitive, using the phrases “harks back” and “stay tuned”, for example, a few times too many each.
But overall, this is a masterful compilation of everything surrounding the subject of behavior; if you know nothing of the topic, this book touches on all aspects in enough depth to bring you up to speed on historical and current thinking.