The Storytelling Animal: How Stories Make Us Human
Humans live in landscapes of make-believe. We spin fantasies. We devour novels, films, and plays. Even sporting events and criminal trials unfold as narratives. Yet the world of story has long remained an undiscovered and unmapped country. It’s easy to say that humans are “wired” for story, but...
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Humans live in landscapes of make-believe. We spin fantasies. We devour novels, films, and plays. Even sporting events and criminal trials unfold as narratives. Yet the world of story has long remained an undiscovered and unmapped country. It’s easy to say that humans are “wired” for story, but why?In this delightful and original book, Jonathan Gottschall offers the first unified theory of storytelling. He argues that stories help us navigate life’s complex social problems—just as flight simulators prepare pilots for difficult situations. Storytelling has evolved, like other behaviors, to ensure our survival.Drawing on the latest research in neuroscience, psychology, and evolutionary biology, Gottschall tells us what it means to be a storytelling animal. Did you know that the more absorbed you are in a story, the more it changes your behavior? That all children act out the same kinds of stories, whether they grow up in a slum or a suburb? That people who read more fiction are more empathetic?Of course, our story instinct has a darker side. It makes us vulnerable to conspiracy theories, advertisements, and narratives about ourselves that are more “truthy” than true. National myths can also be terribly dangerous: Hitler’s ambitions were partly fueled by a story.But as Gottschall shows in this remarkable book, stories can also change the world for the better. Most successful stories are moral—they teach us how to live, whether explicitly or implicitly, and bind us together around common values. We know we are master shapers of story. The Storytelling Animal finally reveals how stories shape us.
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Format: hardcover
ISBN:
9780547391403 (0547391404)
ASIN: 547391404
Publish date: April 10th 2012
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
Pages no: 248
Edition language: English
Category:
Non Fiction,
Writing,
Humanities,
Language,
Science,
Books About Books,
Biology,
Philosophy,
Sociology,
Anthropology,
Psychology,
Neuroscience
The author draws from such fields as psychology, biology, and neuroscience to explain why humans are hard-wired for telling and enjoying stories. Breezy and interesting.
I loved Gottschall from the first line of this book; I quickly saw he was a book fan geeking out about how awesome fiction is and I cheerfully followed along.I'm always going to fangirl over books on books -- I can't help it. I love readers and I love reading about reading. Gottschall takes joy in...
Human beings. We're all wired up for narrative from the way-back times. Gottschall does a great job showing us the various ways in which story pushes, moves, influences, controls us, pulses through the very core of our being. It's a good book. If you like that sort of thing.