A definitive account of how language works, how we learn it and how it evolves, from an award-winning cognitive scientist and public intellectual. New edition, including an afterword on the book's origins and influence, and re-jacketed as part of a backlist redesign.

Why do we laugh? What makes memories fade? Why do people believe in ghosts? How the Mind Works explores every aspect of mental life, showing that our minds are not a mystery, but a system of organs of computation designed by natural selection.