I, Mammal: How to Make Peace With the Animal Urge for Social Power

great book

I came across this book almost by accident, when researching some info, and I am delighted that I did. Loretta Breuning's theories about the similarities between our behaviours and those of our mammal cousins are extremely well thought out and presented. Loretta keeps her explanations simple and undramatic, which adds in my opinion to some fantastic ideas about how we behave both individually and in groups. Every now and then Loretta adds anecdotes some from her own experiences and from relevant cases, as well as details of empirical research, though without over-complicating matters.I can see a lot of overlap between some of the theories in this book, and some of the work written by people such as Daniel Kahneman, for example Kahneman's recent book `Thinking Fast and Slow', which talks about humans as almost two separate entities, instinctive and impulsive on the one hand, and deliberate and calculating on the other. When looked in light of 'I mammal', one can almost see the root causes of Kahneman's findings.One can also see many other examples in this book of potential causes of what are labelled,'biases, heuristics, and self-defeating behaviours' in the fields of the behavioural sciences.The fact that I am the first to review this book in the UK clearly suggests that it has not yet got a wide audience, but I do hope that more people read this and come to understand themselves and our society better.