From apes to astronauts: SPEECH! tells the extraordinary story of a simple evolutionary trick that's been hiding in plain sight. What if it was language that made us intelligent - not the other way round? "I couldn't stop reading until I finished it. This book should be widely read!" James Lovelock
"I think you're right." Steven Pinker "A literate and stylish writer." Richard Dawkins
"An utterly enthralling voyage into the very heart of what makes us human." Stephen Fry Language is so familiar that we rarely stop to ask how it began - or what it really changed. SPEECH! argues that a surprisingly simple evolutionary trick transformed not just the way our ancestors communicated, but the way they thought. From that moment, ideas could accumulate, cultures could evolve, and humanity embarked on an astonishing mental journey unlike anything else seen in nature. Drawing on biology, anthropology, psychology, history and linguistics, SPEECH! offers a new insight into the greatest mystery of human evolution - the emergence of language, and the subtle shift that unleashed a cognitive revolution. For language created a shared intelligence: a group brain that allowed knowledge, science and civilisation to flourish amid the competing worlds of culture, religion and identity that still shape our struggles today. SPEECH! is not just the story of how language began. It's the story of how language changed everything - from our very first words to the dawn of artificial intelligence. But it is also about the future: if language was how we learnt to become human, can we now learn to fulfil its promise of a shared humanity? Further endorsements:
"Crisp and clear - I agree with your hypothesis." Desmond Morris "A 'must read' for our times." John Gribbin
"A genuine intellectual feast of ideas. One of the most intelligent books I've read in a long time." Matt Ridley
"Lucid, wide-ranging and accessible." Terry Eagleton "An imaginative, scholarly work." Sir Anthony Seldon
"Reading for both pleasure and research." Ricky Gervais "Bravo! A compelling read." Yoko Ono Lennon
"Subtle, erudite and profoundly thought-provoking." Nicholas Crane "I highly recommend it." Harper Reed Jee Mandayo: https: //medium.com/@info_60370/if-you-liked-sapiens-youll-love-this-eff80e034b0c