United States
£ GBP
Why do zombies walk with their arms outstretched? How can newborn babies grip an adult finger tightly enough to dangle unsupported from it? And why is everyone constantly texting, tapping and scrolling?
For anyone curious about how human beings work, the answers are hidden in plain sight: in our hands. From early tools to machinery – from fists to knives to guns – from papyrus to QWERTY to a swipeable screen – the history of civilization is a history of what humans do with their hands. We have always kept our hands occupied, and if mankind's story is marked out by profound changes in how we use our hands, it is also marked by underlying patterns that never change. And as much as the things we do with our hands reflect our psychological state, they can also change that state profoundly...
Drawing examples from popular culture, art history, psychoanalysis, modern technology and clinical research, Darian Leader presents a unique and fascinating odyssey through the history of what human beings do with their hands – and why.
Darian Leader is a British psychoanalyst and the author of Introducing Lacan, Why do Women Write More Letters Than They Post?, Promises Lovers Make When It Gets Late, Freud's Footnotes, Stealing the Mona Lisa, Why do People Get Ill, co-written with David Corfield, The New Black, What Is Madness, Strictly Bipolar and Hands. He practises psychoanalysis in London, and he is a member of the College of Psychoanalysts and a founding member of the Centre for Freudian Analysis and Research.
"Clever, beguiling and confident"
– Sunday Times, Books of the Year
"A breezy and diverting cultural history of fidgeting"
– The Times Literary Supplement
"An intriguing meditation on how vital our hands are to our understanding of ourselves and our world"
– Sunday Times
"Eloquent, thought-provoking [...] Leader conveys complex ideas with a light touch and sharp wit"
– New Statesman
