From Library Journal
Homo sapiens has existed as a separate species for only a very short period of time on the evolutionary scale (six million years at most), and we share 99 percent of our DNA with our closest primate relatives. How then can humans be as different from other primates as we obviously are? Developmental psychologist Tomasello thinks that all of the many unique characteristics of humans are elaborations of one trait that arises in human infants at about nine months of age: the ability to understand other people as intentional agents. (He dismisses a bit too cavalierly the anecdotal evidence of recent animal behaviorists who would describe a good deal of animal behavior as intentional in this sense.) Language, elaborate cultures, and other hallmarks of humanity are all natural outgrowths of this single trait. The author is clearly highly credentialed, his thesis is certainly plausible, and the language is not jargony. However, his topic is really very limited; the bulk of the book focuses on the narrow issue of "shared attention." Only graduate students and developmental psychologists will want to know this much about the subject. Recommended for academic collections.
-Mary Ann Hughes, Neill P.L., Pullman, WA
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.
-Mary Ann Hughes, Neill P.L., Pullman, WA
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Jerome Bruner, New York University
A powerful and coherent synthesis, and the best formulation of cultural psychology we've yet had.
