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Zusatztext 57974171 Informationen zum Autor Agustín Fuentes, PhD Klappentext A bold new synthesis of paleontology, archaeology, genetics, and anthropology that overturns misconceptions about race, war and peace, and human nature itself, answering an age-old question: What made humans so exceptional among all the species on Earth? Creativity. It is the secret of what makes humans special, hiding in plain sight. Agustín Fuentes argues that your child's finger painting comes essentially from the same place as creativity in hunting and gathering millions of years ago, and throughout history in making war and peace, in intimate relationships, in shaping the planet, in our communities, and in all of art, religion, and even science. It requires imagination and collaboration. Every poet has her muse; every engineer, an architect; every politician, a constituency. The manner of the collaborations varies widely, but successful collaboration is inseparable from imagination, and it brought us everything from knives and hot meals to iPhones and interstellar spacecraft. Weaving fascinating stories of our ancient ancestors' creativity, Fuentes finds the patterns that match modern behavior in humans and animals. This key quality has propelled the evolutionary development of our bodies, minds, and cultures, both for good and for bad. It's not the drive to reproduce; nor competition for mates, or resources, or power; nor our propensity for caring for one another that have separated us out from all other creatures. As Fuentes concludes, to make something lasting and useful today you need to understand the nature of your collaboration with others, what imagination can and can't accomplish, and, finally, just how completely our creativity is responsible for the world we live in. Agustín Fuentes's resounding multimillion-year perspective will inspire readers-and spark all kinds of creativity.1 Creative Primates I was under the immense banyan tree in the central plaza of the Padangtegal monkey forest in Bali, Indonesia. I'd been here for months watching a few groups of macaque monkeys, immersing myself in their society. A small group of macaque monkeys sprinted up into the trees and the terraced hillside above the main temple. The dominant troop meandered in to take their place. Teardrop, an adult female so named for a white birthmark in the shape of a tear just below her left eye, trailed by about thirty feet from any other monkey. She always traveled apart from the rest of the group. I didn't give her much thought. My attention switched to Arnold, the dominant male, and Short-tail, the alpha female, who teamed up to take a cluster of papaya leaves and a prized half coconut from two low-ranking males. I looked down and again noticed Teardrop, who now sat only ten feet away from me, staring at a leaf on the ground and nonchalantly scratching her side. I turned to scan the plaza to get an idea of the groups' spread; the males, females, and young formed small clusters like little families. I felt a gentle pressure on my right leg. Teardrop was now right next to me, her left hand on my thigh. Over the next few minutes she calmly leaned into me. We did not look at each other, nor did we move, for about ten minutes. Then she got up, looked around, cast a sideways glance at me, and walked away. I discovered in time that Teardrop was unable to have offspring, and as such she was never able to work herself into any of the clusters of females and young that made up the social core of the macaque group. But she did, on occasion, sidle up next to humans and lean into them. Teardrop, like all monkeys, needed physical and social contact to live, and like all monkeys she occasionally got socially creative to satisfy those needs. Afte...
