HOW THE MIND WORKS

Pinker’s comprehensive introduction to evolutionary psychology, focusing on the “computational theory of mind,” covers an enormous amount of territory. Pinker's analysis builds on the highly controversial but significant work of sociobiology, much discussed four decades ago. As in his other books, Pinker marshals a lot of information to support his points. Narrator Mel Foster does an excellent job of making every data set generated by every series of laboratory experiments and every opinion survey seem interesting. In addition, his pronunciation of Pinker’s extraordinary vocabulary is flawless. The book, first published in 1997, remains relevant although many of the experimental fields Pinker discusses have developed considerably since then. Pinker deals with these changes in a brief afterword. F.C. © AudioFile 2012, Portland, Maine [Published: JANUARY 2012]