num_pages: 288
description: Based on a wildly popular Atlantic article: an astonishing investigation into the world of microbes and the myriad ways they control how other creatures  including humans  act feel and think As we are now discovering parasites  microbes that cannot thrive and reproduce without another organism as a host  are shockingly sophisticated and extraordinarily powerful. In fact a plethora of parasites affect our behavior in ways we have barely begun to understand. In this mind-bending book McAuliffe reveals the eons-old war between parasites and other creatures that is playing out in our very own bodies. And more surprising still she uncovers the decisive role that parasites may have played in the rise and demise of entire civilizations. Our obsession with cleanliness and our experience of disgust are both evolutionary tools for avoiding infection but they evolved differently for different populations. Political social and religious differences among societies may be caused in part by the different parasites that prey on us. In the tradition of Jared Diamonds Guns Germs and Steel and Neil Shubins Your Inner Fish This Is Your Brain on Parasites is both a journey into cutting-edge science and a revelatory examination of what it means to be human.
language: English
title: This Is Your Brain on Parasites: How Tiny Creatures Manipulate Our Behavior and Shape Society
publisher: Eamon Dolan/Houghton Mifflin Harcourt