The Social Animal

The Hidden Sources of Love, Character, and Achievement

De: David Brooks

Narrado por: Arthur Morey

With unequaled insight and brio, David Brooks, the New York Times columnist and bestselling author of Bobos in Paradise, has long explored and explained the way we live. Now, with the intellectual curiosity and emotional wisdom that make his columns among the most read in the nation, Brooks turns to the building blocks of human flourishing in a multilayered, profoundly illuminating work grounded in everyday life.

This is the story of how success happens. It is told through the lives of one composite American couple, Harold and Erica—how they grow, push forward, are pulled back, fail, and succeed. Distilling a vast array of information into these two vividly realized characters, Brooks illustrates a fundamental new understanding of human nature. A scientific revolution has occurred—we have learned more about the human brain in the last thirty years than we had in the previous three thousand. The unconscious mind, it turns out, is most of the mind—not a dark, vestigial place but a creative and enchanted one, where most of the brain’s work gets done. This is the realm of emotions, intuitions, biases, longings, genetic predispositions, personality traits, and social norms: the realm where character is formed and where our most important life decisions are made. The natural habitat of The Social Animal.

Drawing on a wealth of current research from numerous disciplines, Brooks takes Harold and Erica from infancy to school; from the “odyssey years” that have come to define young adulthood to the high walls of poverty; from the nature of attachment, love, and commitment, to the nature of effective leadership. He reveals the deeply social aspect of our very minds and exposes the bias in modern culture that overemphasizes rationalism, individualism, and IQ. Along the way, he demolishes conventional definitions of success while looking toward a culture based on trust and humility.

The Social Animal is a moving and nuanced intellectual adventure, a story of achievement and a defense of progress. Impossible to put down, it is an essential book for our time, one that will have broad social impact and will change the way we see ourselves and the world.

Reseñas de la Crítica

“Authoritative, impressively learned, and vast in scope.”—Newsweek

“As in [Bobos in Paradise] he shows genius in sketching archetypes and coining phrases. . . . In The Social Animal Mr. Brooks surveys a stunning amount of research and cleverly connects it to everyday experience.”—The Wall Street Journal

“[A] fascinating study of the unconscious mind and its impact on our lives . . . Brooks has done well to draw such vivid attention to the wide implications of the accumulated research on the mind and the triggers of human behaviour.”—The Economist

“An uncommonly brilliant blend of sociology, intellect and allegory.”—Kirkus Reviews, starred revew

“Provocative and fascinating . . . seeks to do nothing less than revolutionize our notions about how we function and conduct our lives.”—The Philadelphia Inquirer

“Multifaceted, compulsively readable . . . Brooks’s considerable achievement comes in his ability to elevate the unseen aspects of private experience into a vigorous and challenging conversation about what we all share.”—San Francisco Chronicle

impressing

Would you consider the audio edition of The Social Animal to be better than the print version?

What a amazing insight into the deepest corners of the human mind. I personally found this a profound experience to listen to. This audiobook made me experience a whole array of emotions and feelings even if with its scientific explanations and background it was somehow meant to be a book about solid facts and figures.

lost puff

Brilliiant start and great concept but not sustained through entire lifespan of the main characters. The trajectory of their lives into old age was one dimensional and an anticlimax as though the author had run out of puff and just wanted to get it over and down with.

Love David on TV ...but ...

Interesting, but very "wonky." I kept wishing for an outline to figure out just what Mr. Brooks was up to here.

A masterpiece

It brings science alive into a story that made me listen attentively and focus immensely. It made me unconsciously reflect at every point about my own life and how I resembled some of the characters in one way or another. It described deep feelings and reasoned about conscious and mind in a way that I’ve never experienced before. For a person who reflects, this book is the answer, the connection to many desperate ideas and theories about life and how we lead through it.

The sound of Arthur Morey has a depth and pitch like those of wise people. All while listening I felt his presence as if he authored the book himself.

wonderfully informative and different

Brooks writes an engaging story of 2 people followed from inception (literally) to death (literally). In that saga, he incorporates what science has to tell us today about nature and nurture. My daughter-in-law is due to have her first child 2 months from now and i found the chapters on birth and infancy to be quite fascinating. I was also quite taken with Brooks first person accounting of death. Not something you read (hear) every day! The narration is excellent. Admittedly, there are some boring chapters but there's a trade off between information and story line. Go for it.