The Cultural Origins of Human Cognition (Paperback)
by
Michael Tomasello (Author)
List Price: $22.50
Editorial Reviews
From Library Journal
Homo sapiens has existed as a separate species for only a very short period of time on the evolutionary scale (six million years at most), and we share 99 percent of our DNA with our closest primate relatives. How then can humans be as different from other primates as we obviously are? Developmental psychologist Tomasello thinks that all of the many unique characteristics of humans are elaborations of one trait that arises in human infants at about nine months of age: the ability to understand other people as intentional agents. (He dismisses a bit too cavalierly the anecdotal evidence of recent animal behaviorists who would describe a good deal of animal behavior as intentional in this sense.) Language, elaborate cultures, and other hallmarks of humanity are all natural outgrowths of this single trait. The author is clearly highly credentialed, his thesis is certainly plausible, and the language is not jargony. However, his topic is really very limited; the bulk of the book focuses on the narrow issue of "shared attention." Only graduate students and developmental psychologists will want to know this much about the subject. Recommended for academic collections.
-Mary Ann Hughes, Neill P.L., Pullman, WA
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.
--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
Review
Nature : Students of primate behavior are one of several groups who should read this important book. It spells out forcefully what appears to make human development so distinctive, and does so from the perspective of an expert in language acquisition who has also devoted much time to comparative work with apes. It is strong medicine for anybody in danger of romanticizing the similarity of ape to child. Developmental psychologists will find here a well-articulated account of the ontogeny of cultural learning, which challenges alternative accounts from the vantage point of extensive research.
--Andrew Whiten
Lingua Franca : "In
The Cultural Origins of Human Cognition...[Tomasello] argues that what makes human beings unique is that they are so good at learning from one another and that they create new, original things with what they learn."
--Helen Epstein
See all Editorial Reviews
Product Details
- Paperback: 256 pages
- Publisher: Harvard University Press (March 2, 2001)
- Language: English
- ISBN-10: 0674005821
- ISBN-13: 978-0674005822
- Product Dimensions: 8.1 x 5.8 x 0.7 inches
