New World New Mind - by Robert Ornstein & Paul Ehrlich (Paperback)

Book Synopsis

Robert Ornstein and Paul Ehrlich explain that we are causing our own problems because we have created a world where our basic mental functions are no longer suitable. We evolved over a period of millions of years to survive in small tribal families on the wild grassy plains of East Africa. Now the way we live has nothing to do with that time and place, but the mental tools that were developed to survive on the savanna have remained unchanged. These instincts were wonderfully adapted to the environment that shaped them. But that world, the world that made us, is gone. Now these same instincts are causing us to destroy the world that we made. The threats we face are of our own making, and we can unmake them. If people learn how we have come to this point, we can restore our hope for the future. New World New Mind describes the way our minds have evolved, and offers suggestions for how to cope with who we are in the world we live in now. Recent decades have seen remarkable progress in many areas. For example, despite the abject suffering of millions of people, it is nonetheless true that there has been unprecedented alleviation of poverty and disease for the world's poorest people. There are so many promising and astonishing advances in medicine, technology, and the social and physical sciences that if we give ourselves a chance to survive, our species could enter a golden age.

Review Quotes

"New World New Mind has a compelling message of urgent importance. It both diagnoses the psychological causes of the current planetary crisis and points to a way out. If we don't act on this information, our grandchildren may never forgive us." - Daniel Goleman, author of Vital Lies and Emotional Intelligence

"We will never look at our world and ourselves in the same way again after reading this book. New World New Mind is an astonishing synthesis of biological, social, and historical knowledge, one that points the direction for the future evolution of our society." - Terrance Leighton, Professor of Microbiology and Biochemistry, University of California at Berkeley

"An important and urgent prescription for sanity... Their engagingly written, continually provocative synthesis effectively demonstrates how we use crude mental caricatures to manipulate a social and physical environment gone haywire." - Publishers Weekly

"The book is a remarkable synthesis of biological, cultural, social, and historical knowledge which offers explanations, illustrations, ideas, and statistical information and possible solutions to our need for conscious evolution in the twenty-first century." - Education Forum

"It's a rare book that changes people's lives, rarer still a book that changes the world. In New World New Mind, Robert Ornstein and Paul Ehrlich not only have the audacity to attempt both things, but they offer just enough visionary thinking and nuts and bolts research to carry it off." - San Francisco Chronicle

"We shall have to bring mind and world together, with proper respect and understanding of both, if we are to maintain any hope for human salvation on a beautiful planet. This book by two great humanists ... points the way ... Let us all listen, read and act..." - evolutionary biologist and author Stephen Jay Gould

"This is a brilliant book... We have to learn to think differently. ... There is still time to save ourselves, if we listen to authors like these." - Nobel Prize-winning author Doris Lessing

"An extraordinary undertaking. Seldom have I read a book that combines so effectively so many strands of human experience and interest." - Norman Cousins, author of Anatomy of an Illness

"New World New Mind should become required reading for all those who want to know where humanity has come from and the changes we now need to make to face our future." - Dr. Donald C. Johansen, author of Lucy

"A fascinating, radical analysis of the world's great problems." - Psychology Today