Books like The folly of fools by Robert Trivers

Daniel Kahneman's "Thinking, Fast and Slow" explains how two distinct mental systems shape our judgments and decisions, offering insights into the biases that influence everyday choices.

Richard Dawkins’ classic, The Selfish Gene reexamines evolution from the perspective of genes as primary agents, arguing that organisms serve as vehicles for gene replication.

David Byrne explores how time, place, and recording technology shape music, tracing evolutionary patterns and cultural responses that culminated in the transformative practices of the 20th century.

Overestimates of violence beg the question: is modern society the most peaceful era? Steven Pinker argues that, through centuries of decline, violence has steadily fallen, revealing humanity’s better angels.

Tim Wu examines the evolution of attention harvesting—from early advertising to digital algorithms—exploring how the pursuit of human focus reshapes society, culture, and commerce.

Nicholas A. Christakis explores the science of social networks and how our connections shape health, mind, and society, from epidemics to COVID‑19, blending global research with insights into physical fitness and social change.

Matt Richtel examines the deadly rise of distracted driving, using a 2006 Utah crash that killed two rocket scientists to explore how cell‑phone use divides attention, affects brain function, and reshapes society.

An American linguist in England examines the rivalry and interplay between British and American English, uncovering how cultural biases shape our attitudes toward the language.

The author of 'This Is Your Brain on Music' unveils six evolutionary musical forms that shaped human culture and society, combining science and art to reveal the neurological basis of our emotional history.

248 p. 21 cm

"The black man suffering at the hands of whites, the white woman sexually threatened by the black man. Both images have long been burned into the American conscience through popular entertainment, and today they exert a powerful and disturbing influence on American's understanding of race. So argues Linda Williams in this inquisitive book, where she probes the bitterly divisive racial sentiments aroused by such recent events as O. J. Simpson's criminal trial. Williams, the author of Hard Core, explores how these images took root, beginning with melodramatic theater, where suffering characters acquire virtue through victimization."--BOOK JACKET.

In this groundbreaking "cultural history of psychotherapy," historian and psychologist Philip Cushman shows how the development of modern psychotherapy is inextricably intertwined with that of the United States and how it has fundamentally changed the way Americans view events and themselves. Using an interpretive historical approach, Cushman shows how and why psychotherapy was created, what its functions are, and how it has come to play such an enormous role in American life. Asserting that each era develops a different conception of "what it means to be human," Cushman traces the evolution of the self throughout history to contemporary times, naming its current configuration in our consumerist society the "empty self," one that needs constant filling. In Constructing the Self, Constructing America, he places psychotherapy in its social and historical context, and examines its origins in the nineteenth century to its preeminence in American life today, arguing that its establishment as a social institution may in fact reproduce some of the very ills that it is meant to heal. Finally, in an unusual move, Cushman suggests a way to use interpretive methods in the everyday practice of psychotherapy. By doing so, he hopes to dissuade both patient and therapist from colluding with the empty self or the rampant consumerism of our time.

"Beatrice K. Otto takes us on a journey around the world in search of one of the most colorful characters in history - the court jester. Though not always clad in cap and bells, these witty, quirky characters crop up everywhere, from the courts of ancient China and the Mogul emperors of India to those of medieval Europe, Africa, the Middle East, and the Americas. Throughout history, they have lampooned anything and anyone deemed sacrosanct - religion and its representatives, self-important scholars, officials, and corrupt, lazy rulers. With a wealth of anecdotes, jokes, quotations, epigraphs, and illustrations, Otto brings to light little-known jesters, highlighting their humanizing influence on people of power and position. In the process she sheds a more idiosyncratic, intimate light on some of the most important figures in world history."--BOOK JACKET.