Psychology Civilization

In The WEIRDest People in the World, Joseph Henrich draws on cutting-edge research in anthropology, psychology, economics, and evolutionary biology to explore these questions and more. He illuminates the origins and evolution of family structures, marriage, and religion, and the profound impact these cultural transformations had on human psychology. Mapping these shifts through ancient history and late antiquity, Henrich reveals that the most fundamental institutions of kinship and marriage changed dramatically under pressure from the Roman Catholic Church.

First published in 1930, Civilization and Its Discontents is one of the most influential works of pioneering psychologist Sigmund Freud. Focusing on the tension between the primitive drives of the individual and the demands of civilization for order and conformity, Freud draws upon his psychoanalytic theories to explain the fundamental structures, conflicts, and consequences of society.

This pioneering account sets out to understand the structure of the human brain - the place where mind meets matter. Until recently, the left hemisphere of our brain has been seen as the "rational" side, the superior partner to the right. But is this distinction true? Drawing on a vast body of experimental research, Iain McGilchrist argues while our left brain makes for a wonderful servant, it is a very poor master.

The publication of Power vs. Force by Sir David R. Hawkins, M.D., Ph.D., reveals to the general public secret information heretofore only shared by the author with certain Nobelists and world leaders. Analyzing the basic nature of human thought and consciousness itself, the author makes available to everyone the key to penetrating the last barrier to the advancement of civilization and science and resolving the most crucial of all human dilemmas.

Reveals the powerful influence of near-death experiences (NDEs) on the formation of religious beliefs, mystical literature, and ritual practices Focuses on the afterlife beliefs of five ancient world regions: Old and Middle Kingdom Egypt, Sumer and Old Babylonian Mesopotamia, Vedic India...

Faced with the ceaseless stream of news about war, crime, and terrorism, one could easily think we live in the most violent age ever seen. Yet as New York Times bestselling author Steven Pinker shows in this startling and engaging new work, just the opposite is true: violence has been diminishing for millennia and we may be living in the most peaceful time in our species's existence.

Sigmund Freud (1856-1939) is remembered as the father of psychoanalysis. Civilization and Its Discontents (1930) is one of his key works, written three decades after his seminal book The Interpretation of Dreams. In it he considers the conflict between the needs of the individual acting both egotistically and altruistically in the pursuit of happiness and the myriad demands of civilised society and the ensuing tensions this clash of needs and demands generates.

The New York Times bestselling coauthor of Sex at Dawn explores the ways in which “progress” has perverted the way we live—how we eat, learn, feel, mate, parent, communicate, work, and die—in this “engaging, extensively documented, well-organized, and thought-provoking” (Booklist)...

While plenty of entertaining books have been written about the history of alcohol and other intoxicants, none have offered a comprehensive, convincing answer to the basic question of why humans want to get high in the first place. Drunk elegantly cuts through the tangle of urban legends and anecdotal impressions that surround our notions of intoxication to provide the first rigorous, scientifically grounded explanation for our love of alcohol.

The ultimate handbook for the modern mother: a practical, and positive tool to help free women from the debilitating notion of being the ""perfect mom,"" filled with funny and all too relatable true-life stories and realistic suggestions to stop the burnout cycle, and protect our kids from the...

Examines the Oldawan, the Ancient Soul of Africa, and its correlation with what modern psychologists have defined as the collective unconscious Draws on archaeology, DNA research, history, and depth psychology to reveal how the biological and spiritual roots of religion and science came...

A pathbreaking neuroscientist reveals how our social instincts turn Me into Us, but turn Us against Them - and what we can do about it. The great dilemma of our shrinking world is simple: never before have those we disagree with been so present in our lives. The more globalization dissolves national borders, the more clearly we see that human beings are deeply divided on moral lines - about everything from tax codes to sexual practices to energy consumption - and that, when we really disagree, our emotions turn positively tribal.

In Civilization and Its Discontents, Sigmund Freud delivers one of the most provocative examinations of modern life ever written. In this concise yet profound work, Freud explores the tension between our instinctual drives and the demands of society—arguing that the very structures that protect us also generate deep, unavoidable dissatisfaction.

Throughout history, even as daily life has exhibited calm and tolerance, war has never been far away, and even within societies, violence can be a threat. The Goodness Paradox gives a new and powerful argument for how and why this uncanny combination of peacefulness and violence crystallized after our ancestors acquired language in Africa a quarter of a million years ago.

Societies that ignore social disintegration and collapsing birth rates are putting their future in peril. So why are we ignoring the signs? ?In The Origin Of Politics, Nicholas Wade explains how our political systems compete with a more ancient set of rules for organizing society—those...

The History of Mental Health Treatment: From Ancient Practices to Modern Science BOOK 1: Ancient and Medieval Mental Health Treatment: How Early Civilizations, Religion, and Philosophy Shaped the First Approaches to Mental Illness explores the long and complex history of how human societies first attempted to understand psychological suffering. Long before psychiatry, therapy, or neuroscience existed, people across ancient and medieval cultures struggled to explain behaviors such as depression, anxiety, hallucinations, and emotional instability. This book traces how those early explanations...

India is not just a country. It is a civilization shaped by thousands of years of philosophy, spiritual inquiry, historical continuity, and cultural adaptation. To understand India, one must understand how it thinks. How India Thinks is a deep yet accessible exploration of the psychological foundations of Indian civilization. Rather than focusing on surface-level customs or modern politics, this book examines the underlying ideas, belief systems, and mental frameworks that have shaped Indian thought across millennia and continue to influence everyday life today. Drawing from ancient ...

Soul Machine takes us back to the origins of modernity, a time when a crisis in religious authority and the scientific revolution led to searching questions about the nature of human inner life. This is the story of how a new concept - the mind - emerged as a potential solution, one that was part soul and part machine but fully neither.

In Civilization and Its Discontents, Freud explores the tension between the individual’s desire for unbridled freedom and the expectations of society. Explaining his view of the basic friction between civilization and the individual, he maintains that the conflict stems from the individual's quest for instinctive freedom versus civilization's demand for conformity and the repression of instincts.

The epic story and ultimate big history of how human society evolved from intimate chimp communities into the sprawling civilizations of a world-dominating species If a chimpanzee ventures into the territory of a different group, it will almost certainly be killed. But a New Yorker can fly to...