The World's Strangest: How Westerners Achieved Psychological Idiosyncrasies and Became Extraordinarily Successful
19.99 €
In stock
The World's Strangest: How Westerners Achieved Psychological Idiosyncrasies and Became Extraordinarily Successful
19.99 €
Unlike the majority of the world's population past and present, Westerners are characterized by a high degree of individualism, analytical thinking, and trust in strangers. They focus on themselves - on their personal qualities, achievements and aspirations - rather than on relationships with others and stable social roles. How did they become so strange in their psychology? What role did their psychological characteristics play in the emergence of Protestantism, the launching of the Industrial Revolution, and the worldwide expansion of Europe over the past few centuries? To answer these and other questions, Harvard Professor Joseph Henrik draws on the latest evidence from anthropology, psychology, economics, and biology in The World's Strangest. He traces the cultural evolution of kinship, marriage, religion, and the state, demonstrating the profound mutual influence of these institutions and the human psyche. Focusing on the centuries immediately after the fall of Rome, Henrik shows that the fundamental institutions of kinship and marriage acquired a striking uniqueness in the West as a result of the almost randomly formulated decisions of the early Church. It was these changes that gave rise to the particular psychology of the people of the West, which subsequently began to evolve in conjunction with impersonal markets, professional specialization, and free competition, thus laying the foundations of the modern world.
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