The last decade has shown a steady decline in the level of peace around the world, as civil wars, terrorism and rising violence become increasingly prominent. The costs of this are huge, with the impact of violence on the global economy calculated as equivalent to $1,988 per person, or 12.4% of global GDP. These costs disproportionately affect the poor. The poor are more likely to be affected by conflict in the first place; by 2030, nearly half of the world’s poor are expected to live in conflict-affected situations. Conflict also serves to further entrench economic development challenges.

Why are we so sure that the way we see people, situations and politics is accurate, and the way other people see them is foolishly wrong?

The answer, according to new research by UCLA psychology professor Matthew Lieberman, lies in a region of the brain he calls the “gestalt cortex,” which helps people make sense of information that is ambiguous or incomplete — and dismiss alternative interpretations.

Biohistory is the study of the biological roots of human social behaviour, explaining the outbreak of wars, economic growth and decline, and different styles of government. It proposes that such events reflect changes in the prevailing temperament of the population, which, in turn, is rooted in epigenetics – which explains how the expression of genes is affected by environmental influences and how this expression can be passed on down the generations, influencing hormones and brain activity and how we think, feel and behave.

It is important for teachers, psychotherapists, employers and others to know something about it if they are to be effective. This is because all human abilities (like paying attention, memory recall and learning) are made worse by poor sleep and there is an intimate relationship between sleep and many psychological conditions — for example, depression, anxiety and psychosis

This book is a stunning unification of science and tradition. It presents a concept of spirituality to address the challenges of the modern world. It explores how our “everyday” mind works as a device for selecting just a few parts of the outside reality that are important for our survival. We don’t experience the world as it is, but as a virtual reality – evolved to keep us safe and to ensure our survival. This system, though essential for getting us safely across a busy street, is insufficient for understanding and solving the challenges of the modern world.

Unlike most who have ever lived, WEIRD people are highly individualistic, nonconformist, analytical and control oriented. How did WEIRD populations become so psychologically peculiar? What part did these differences play in our history and what do they mean for our collective identity? How changing family structures, marriage practices and religious beliefs in the Middle Ages shaped the western mind, laying the foundations for the world we know today. Brilliant, provocative, engaging and surprising, this study will help us understand who and how – we are now.

While familiar to us in science and engineering, we also use the word ‘invention’ in other creative endeavours such as music, mathematics, fine art and literature. In this broader context we can define invention as the purposeful use of imagination, to satisfy a human need [see appendix: Art, Science and Creativity]. Therefore the aspects of invention such as the timing and the underlying mental processes outlined specifically here in relation to science and technology, apply equally to much wider areas of creativity and problem solving. An essential requirement for an invention is that it be a new idea rather than a modification or reformulation of an existing concept. A more precise criterion for defining novelty in terms of overcoming contradictions is described in the section on the science of inventing.

Our unique and versatile minds may have developed according to evolutionary pressures to survive, but barely were they formed, than they began to work in extraordinary ways, challenging and redefining the very forces of nature they came into contact with. Even while he lived in caves and hunted for a living, man asked questions that went far beyond the mundane: Where are we going? Where did we come from? What forces shaped our universe? The story of our evolution includes our attempts to find answers to these questions, and many more. Our shared human history may shed some light on the advantages, origins and possible future development of what has become an unstoppable habit – man’s determination to use the power of his mind to break through whatever restrictions face him. Examination of the archaeological record, as well as of ‘modern primitives’ living in contemporary hunter-gatherer societies, shows at the very least that supposedly ‘primitive’ peoples have dealt with human problems in similar ways. Above all, the debt we owe to them for their pioneering role in identifying and approaching problems common to all of humanity should be recognised. We shall start by examining the origins of man’s capacity to adapt and survive, which goes back to the birth of humanity.