RaveThe New York Times Book ReviewSapolsky has produced a quirky, opinionated and magisterial synthesis of psychology and neurobiology that integrates this complex subject more accessibly and completely than ever ... Behavioral biology is indeed complex, but Sapolsky simplifies the topic with a beautifully organized and well-stocked store of knowledge. He has such a light tone, so imperious a command of data and such a rich fund of anecdotes that we are swept swiftly along to the last third of the book ... Sapolsky proposes 10 strategies for reducing violence, all reasonable but none that justify the notion that science is the basis for societal advances toward less violence and higher morality...In this section Sapolsky becomes a partisan critic, including presenting a skeptical view about the supposed long-term decline of human violence ... If it took an unrealistic connection between science and society to motivate Sapolsky to write Behave, that is a small price. His book offers a wild and mind-opening ride into a better understanding of just where our behavior comes from. Darwin would have been thrilled.
