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A watershed book that masterfully integrates insights from evolutionary biology, genetics, psychology, economics, and more to explore the development and workings of human societies "There is no good reason why human societies should not be described and explained with the same precision and success as the rest of nature." Thus argues evolutionary psychologist Pascal Boyer in this uniquely innovative book. Integrating recent insights from evolutionary biology, genetics, psychology, economics, and other fields, Boyer offers precise models of why humans engage in social behaviors such as forming families, tribes, and nations, or creating gender roles. In fascinating, thought-provoking passages, he explores questions such as, Why is there conflict between groups? Why do people believe low-value information such as rumors? Why are there religions? What is social justice? What explains morality? Boyer provides a new picture of cultural transmission that draws on the pragmatics of human communication, the constructive nature of memory in human brains, and human motivation for group formation and cooperation.

Cognition and culture. --- Cognition. --- Social evolution. --- Socialization.

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This text introduces students, scholars, and interested educated readers to the issues of human memory broadly considered, encompassing both individual memory, collective remembering by societies, and the construction of history. The book is organised around several major questions: How do memories construct our past? How do we build shared collective memories? How does memory shape history? This volume presents a special perspective, emphasising the role of memory processes in the construction of self-identity, of shared cultural norms and concepts, and of historical awareness. Although the results are fairly new and the techniques suitably modern, the vision itself is of course related to the work of such precursors as Frederic Bartlett and Aleksandr Luria, who in very different ways represent the starting point of a serious psychology of human culture.

Cognition and culture. --- Collective memory. --- Memory --- Oral tradition. --- Recollection (Psychology). --- Social aspects. --- Recollection (Psychology) --- Tradition, Oral --- Oral communication --- Folklore --- Oral history --- Culture and cognition --- Cognition --- Culture --- Ethnophilosophy --- Ethnopsychology --- Socialization --- Recall (Psychology) --- Recognition (Psychology) --- Collective remembrance --- Common memory --- Cultural memory --- Emblematic memory --- Historical memory --- National memory --- Public memory --- Social memory --- Social psychology --- Group identity --- National characteristics --- Retention (Psychology) --- Intellect --- Psychology --- Thought and thinking --- Comprehension --- Executive functions (Neuropsychology) --- Mnemonics --- Perseveration (Psychology) --- Reproduction (Psychology) --- Health Sciences --- Psychiatry & Psychology