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Princeton University Library Catalog
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How history gets things wrong : the neuroscience of our addiction to stories / Alex Rosenberg.
Author
Rosenberg, Alexander, 1946-
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Format
Book
Language
English
Published/Created
Cambridge, Massachusetts : The MIT Press, [2018]
Description
289 pages, 8 unnumbered pages of plates : illustrations (some color), maps ; 24 cm
Availability
Available Online
CogNet Library Books
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Location
Call Number
Status
Location Service
Notes
Firestone Library - Stacks
D16.16 .R674 2018
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Details
Subject(s)
Psychohistory
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Cognitive neuroscience
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History, Modern
—
Psychological aspects
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Historiography
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Summary note
"This trade book takes on the widely-shared belief that learning the history of something always contributes to understanding it, is often the best way to do so, and sometimes is the only way. The aim is to explain away these three beliefs, to show why historical narrative is always, always wrong, not just incomplete or inaccurate or unfounded, but mistaken the way Ptolemaic astronomy or Phlogiston chemistry is wrong. The resources employed to do this are those of evolutionary anthropology, cognitive science, and most of all neuroscience. Much of the book reports Nobel Prize winning advances in neuroscience in ways that are accessible to the non-specialist and reveals their relevance for our fatal attraction to stories. Although framed as a searching critique of historical narrative as path to understanding and knowledge, the book also provides a report of the current state of play of research in cognitive social psychology, evolutionary anthropology, and the study of the brain at the level of neural detail"-- Provided by publisher.
Bibliographic references
Includes bibliographical references (pages 261-272) and index.
Contents
Besotted by stories
How many times can the German Army play the same trick?
Why ever did Hitter declare war on the United States? : That's easy to explain, too easy
Is the theory of mind wired in?
The natural history of historians
What exactly was the Kaiser thinking?
Can neuroscience tell us what Talleyrand meant?
Talleyrand's betrayal : in inside story
Jeopardy! "question" : "It shows the theory of mind to be completely wrong"
The future of an illusion
Henry Kissinger mind reads his way through the Congress of Vienna
Guns, germs, steel--and all that
The Gulag Archipelago and the uses of history
The back(non)story.
Show 11 more Contents items
ISBN
9780262038577 (hardcover : alkaline paper)
0262038579 (hardcover : alkaline paper)
LCCN
2018001232
OCLC
1049574907
Other standard number
40028510898
Statement on language in description
Princeton University Library aims to describe library materials in a manner that is respectful to the individuals and communities who create, use, and are represented in the collections we manage.
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How history gets things wrong : the neuroscience of our addiction to stories / Alex Rosenberg.
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