Will I love The Gap?

This is the best single book summarizing contemporary scientific knowledge on what makes humans different from other animals. It strikes a middle path between “romantics” who want to believe dolphins and primates can do everything we can and “killjoys” who try to maintain more traditional notions of human superiority.

But if there is a “gap” between us and other animals, exactly what is it? Suddendorf tracks the question from one field of possible answers to the next, from linguistics to anthropology to archaeology to primatology to cognitive science.

The book reads like a detective story – I couldn’t put it… show more.

If you want to understand humans, you need to know how we differ from and how we’re similar to the rest of the animal kingdom. This book covers that topic better than any other. It might seem like the differences between us and them are obvious, but when you read this book you realize that it’s not so obvious after all. Suddendorf does an amazing job describing the science of us and them, and then shows you two key differences that you’ve probably never thought of, but play a central role in separating us from everyone else.