Recently many people have assumed that we are shaped by our environment: a blank slate waiting to be inscribed by upbringing and culture, with innate abilities playing little part. This title shows that this view denies the heart of our being: human nature.

Why do so many swear words involve topics like sex, bodily functions or the divine? Why do some children's names thrive while others fall out of favour? Why do we threaten and bribe and seduce in such elaborate, often comical ways? This title looks at how the relationship between words and thoughts can help us understand who we are.

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.

"If I could give each of you a graduation present, it would be this-the most inspiring book I've ever read."

-Bill Gates (May, 2017)

A provocative history of violence-from the New York Times bestselling author of The Stuff of Thought, The Blank Slate, and Enlightenment Now.Believe it or not, today we may be living in the most peaceful moment in our species' existence. In his gripping and controversial new work, New York Times bestselling author Steven Pinker shows that despite the ceaseless n...