A magisterial history book on why some nations are rich and others poor.

Argues that the biological understanding of human nature threatens humane values. This book reveals positive arguments for the compatibility of biology and humanism.

Chronicling a revolution in our understanding of genes, Matt Ridley recounts the hundred years' war between the partisans of nature and nurture to explain how this paradoxical creature, the human being, can be simultaneously free-willed and motivated by instinct and culture.

An account of a revolution in our understanding of life's history, this book tells how three obscure British scientists completely changed our view of evolution by discovering a unique group of 530 million year-old creatures in the Burgess Shale fossil deposit in the Rockies.

Why do memories fade? Why do we lose our tempers? Why do fools fall in love? This work explores the nature and history of the human mind. It looks at the computations and evolutions, and then considers how the mind lets us see, think, feel, interact, and pursue higher callings like art, religion and philosophy.

Revises the traditional view of consciousness by claiming that tautology and Descartes' dualism of mind and body should be replaced with theories from the realms of neuroscience, psychology and artificial intelligence.