Vendor
	Mohrbooks Literary Agency Sebastian Ritscher
Original language
English

THE CREATIVE SPARK

Agustin Fuentes

How Collaboration Made Humans Exceptional

In the tradition of Jared Diamond’s million copy selling anthropology classic Guns, Germs, and Steel, a book that overturns widely held misconceptions about race, war, and peace, and human nature itself, providing a profoundly new answer to an age old question: what made humans so exceptional among all the species on earth?

In THE CREATIVE SPARK, Agustín Fuentes offers a new story of human evolution: he argues that it was our ability to think creatively that ultimately led us to succeed as a species. Fuentes isn’t talking about just poetry, symphonies, or your child’s finger painting—though they are, of course, to be included. But there’s also creativity in hunting and gathering, in intimate relationships, in shaping our communities. Not only is this cocktail of creativity and collaboration unique to our species, it has propelled the development of our bodies, minds, and cultures, for the good and for the bad. So, it isn’t the drive to reproduce, the competition for mates (or resources, or power), or our propensity for caring for one another that have separated us from all other creatures. Instead, we are first and foremost the species shaped by creativity.

CREATIVE SPARK is a richly detailed narrative that takes us on a journey from the evolution of various primate species to the invention of war, language, towns, art, sex, and all of science. Fuentes is an anthropologist and a leading authority with his own research on this subject. He weaves in personal stories of observing monkeys in third world marketplaces and being suspended in dark caves analyzing 30,000-year-old art, among many fascinating field expeditions.

Agustín Fuentes, during more than two decades of research, has published over 130 academic articles and book chapters and authored and/or edited 13 academic books. He has chased monkeys, apes, and humans in the jungles and cities of Asia, the mountains of Morocco, and the streets of Gibraltar. He's explored the lives of our evolutionary ancestors and examined what people actually do day in and day out across the globe. He is a full professor and the chair of Notre Dame's Department of Anthropology and aNational GeographicExplorer. His perspectives and research have been covered inThe Atlantic, onHuffington Post, Scientific Americanand NPR. He lives in Indiana.

Available products
Book Published 2017-05-01 by Dutton Books
Book Published 2017-03-21 by Dutton Books

Comments

The Creative Spark is strong on man's imaginative accomplishments and offers an important corrective to the skewed debate on human nature. A species that, uniquely, ponders its own exceptionality will surely be fascinated by it.

The diverse studies in creativity are good ones. encompassing everything from conflict resolution to learning how to use fire to cooknot just red meat, but fish and vegetables as well. an informative, readable introduction to recent scholarship on the anthropology of creativity.

A perfect example of our humanness. It combines individual creativity with a synthesis of the works of others to describe how the lives of humans and our ancestors were changed, sometimes for better and sometimes for worse, by harnessing and expanding creative abilities. Anyone who is curious about how we arrived at our present condition will want to read this book.

In The Creative Spark, everything old and familiar from livestock and tools, to marriage and war, and everything in between is made fresh and new in this fascinating retelling of the story of humans' unique evolutionary journey. Grand in scope, but packed with detailed research and intimate prose, Fuentes once again gives us the precious gift of an accessible demolition of long-held assumptions, and a compelling, important, and revelatory understanding of ourselves.

Creativity is an essential reason why Homo sapiens have progressed to the point we have: dominating an entire planet and eagerly searching the universe, argues anthropologist Fuentes. His thesis is an intriguing and insightful one.

A magisterial tour of what makes us human, and how we got that way. Large and complex controversies are judiciously evaluated in a clearly written, fascinating way, and coherently assembled into a persuasive alternative to the simplistic biologisms that dominate contemporary discourse. This is the best guide I know on how the human world evolved, and a solid foundation for creative optimism.

Harnessing the latest findings in evolution, biology, and archaeology [Fuentes] creates a new synthesis to show that the great drivers of human progress have been creativity and cooperation, and that many of the things we believe about ourselves, from religion to race, are wrong.

persuasive, entertaining, informative and successful. Read more...

A revolutionary perspective on what it means to be human. Fuentes breathes new life into one of our oldest questions. So much of what we think of as uniquely human has stagnated around a linear version of intelligence. Fuentes introduces imagination as a powerful force that has shaped who we are, and how we have become so successful. Thoughtfully researched and beautifully written, The Creative Spark is destined to become a classic.

Simplified Chinese: CITIC ; Korean: ChungRim ; Romanian: S.C. Publica ; Spanish: Planeta

Rather than focusing his explanation of human evolution on an increase in brain size or intelligence, Fuentes turns instead to creativity as a fundamental aspect of what it means to be human.

Fuentes presents his theories in a captivating narrative that feels like an intriguing mystery. To look up from The Creative Spark after finishing the last page is to see the world in new, complex ways. Fuentes's work adds depth to our reality and fosters a deep respect and appreciation for the many forms creativity takes.

Condensing a great deal of anthropological research, Fuentes shows how imaginative resourcefulness enabled a vulnerable species lacking fangs and claws to survive in a world of fierce predators. whether facing the current threat of armed conflict or pondering contemporary controversies surrounding gender and religion, Fuentes draws one imperative lesson from humankind's deep past: we survive as a species only so long as we continue to creatively innovate.