A01=Peter C. Whybrow
Author_Peter C. Whybrow
Category1=Non-Fiction
Category=NL-PD
Category=NL-PS
Category=NL-VS
Category=PDZ
Category=PSAN
Category=VSP
COP=United States
Discount=15
eq_bestseller
eq_isMigrated=2
eq_nobargain
eq_non-fiction
eq_science
eq_self-help
Format=BC
Format_Paperback
HMM=211
IMPN=WW Norton & Co
ISBN13=9780393353044
Language_English
PA=In stock
PD=20160510
POP=New York
Price_€10 to €20
PS=Active
PUB=WW Norton & Co
SMM=25
Subject=Biology- Life Sciences
Subject=Science: General Issues
Subject=Self-help & Personal Development
WG=314
WMM=142
Product details
- ISBN 9780393353044
- Format: Paperback
- Weight: 314g
- Dimensions: 142 x 211 x 25mm
- Publication Date: 10 May 2016
- Publisher: WW Norton & Co
- Publication City/Country: New York, US
- Product Form: Paperback
- Language: English
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The Well-Tuned Brain is a call to action. Swept along by the cascading advances of today’s technology, most of us take for granted that progress brings improvement. Despite spectacular material advance, however, the evidence grows that we are failing to create a sustainable future for humanity. We are out of tune with the planet that nurtures us.
Technology itself is not the problem, as Whybrow explains, but rather our behavior. Throughout its evolution the ancient brain that guides us each day has been focused on short-term survival. But fortunately we are intensely social creatures. Without the caring behaviors that flow from intimate attachments to others, we would be relying on a brain that is only marginally adapted to the complexity of the problems we must now face together. Today we must grapple with survival, not in its immediacy but over the long term.
The first step in finding our way forward is to reexamine who we are as creatures of this planet. To this end, Whybrow takes us on a fascinating tour of self-discovery, drawing extensively upon his decades of experience as a psychiatrist and his broad knowledge of neuroscience and human behavior.
Illustrated throughout with engaging personal stories, the book’s trove of cutting-edge science is enriched by philosophical, historical, and cultural perspectives. What emerges is a summons to rediscover the essential virtues of earlier nurturing, of mentored education, and an engagement with the natural world through curiosity and imagination.
Neuroscience can open the search for a better future. But technology alone will not save us. To achieve success we will need the strength and wisdom of our better nature as humane social beings.
Peter C. Whybrow, MD, is director of the Semel Institute for Neuroscience and Human Behavior at the University of California, Los Angeles. Born and educated in England, he is the author, among other books, of A Mood Apart and the award-winning American Mania: When More Is Not Enough.
