The Storytelling Animal, Jonathan Gottschall
The Storytelling Animal, Jonathan Gottschall
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The Storytelling Animal
How Stories Make Us Human

Author: Jonathan Gottschall

Narrator: Kris Koscheski

Unabridged: 5 hr 32 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Publisher: Tantor Media

Published: 09/24/2012


Synopsis

Humans live in landscapes of make-believe. We spin fantasies. We devour novels, films, and plays. Even sporting events and criminal trials unfold as narratives. Yet the world of story has long remained an undiscovered and unmapped country. It's easy to say that humans are "wired" for story, but why?

In this delightful and original book, Jonathan Gottschall offers the first unified theory of storytelling. He argues that stories help us navigate life's complex social problems—just as flight simulators prepare pilots for difficult situations. Storytelling has evolved, like other behaviors, to ensure our survival.

Drawing on the latest research in neuroscience, psychology, and evolutionary biology, Gottschall tells us what it means to be a storytelling animal. Did you know that the more absorbed you are in a story, the more it changes your behavior? That all children act out the same kinds of stories, whether they grow up in a slum or a suburb? That people who read more fiction are more empathetic?

Of course, our story instinct has a darker side. It makes us vulnerable to conspiracy theories, advertisements, and narratives about ourselves that are more "truthy" than true. National myths can also be terribly dangerous: Hitler's ambitions were partly fueled by a story. But as Gottschall shows in this remarkable book, stories can also change the world for the better. Most successful stories are moral—they teach us how to live, whether explicitly or implicitly, and bind us together around common values. We know we are master shapers of story. The Storytelling Animal finally reveals how stories shape us.

About Jonathan Gottschall

Jonathan Gottschall is the author of The Rape of Troy: Evolution, Violence, and the World of Homer and Literature, Science, and a New Humanities, as well as coeditor of several books, including Graphing Jane Austen and The Literary Animal. His work has been featured widely in the media, including the New York Times magazine, the New York Times, Scientific American Mind, New Scientist, the Chronicle of Higher Education, Nature, Science, BBC Radio and NPR. Jonathan teaches in the English Department at Washington & Jefferson College. He lives with his wife and two daughters in Washington, Pennsylvania.


Reviews

Goodreads review by Glenn on January 30, 2016

Everybody loves a good story. But what about your own story? Years ago someone told me of their experience in a bar. Thus, my micro-fiction: ALL IN THE TELLING I’m feeling lonely, depressed, really down in the dog. I trudge to the closest bar and, after a couple of beers, proceed to tell the guy sitt......more

Goodreads review by Valeriu on May 13, 2023

A. În fond, de ce ne plac poveștile, la ce ne folosesc? Răspunsul lui Gottschall: 1. pentru că ne ajută să „explicăm” ceea ce nu vom înțelege niciodată, 2. pentru că ne ajută să nu cădem într-o depresie fără fund, 3. pentru că ne ajută să ne amăgim; dacă nu ne-am amăgi permanent, n-am suporta viața ș......more