Geoffrey Miller again doesn't disappoint, and his recent book Spent represents the natural result of the outstanding previous book "The Mating Mind". Maybe not as immediately fascinating as The MM (I've read it twice in a row, having much more pleasure in the second reading), Spent reveals once again how deep and unconventional is prof.Miller's intellectual work, even compared to other Evolutionary Psychology scholars. Engaging...
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I found this book enjoyable to read. The author takes us to prehistoric times to explain why we buy certain products such as cars. He argues that we buy things to showcase to others our potential as mates or friends. For example, men might buy masculine looking cars with the hope of attracting women. We buy brand name products, because we want to be seen as cool and associated with the brand and the people who endorse the...
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_Spent_ offers a valuable opportunity to escape from consumerism craziness and get back in touch with our evolutionary roots. Geoffrey Miller does an amazing job in showing how consumer capitalism preys on our evolutionary drives for displaying fitness indicators and chasing fitness cues, but it ultimately results in our flaunting traits that are often redundant, misleading, useless, or counterproductive. Under the spell...
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My husband and I play a game when we drive: he points out a car and I tell him what I think that driver thinks other people think of his choice of car. Then I say what I think it really reveals. A Hummer? The driver is a primal hunter-gatherer, powerful and dripping in testosterone. There are very different stories about the Jeep with no doors, the yellow Beetle, the big slow Cadillac. Spent is all about the prehistoric origins...
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True to the spirit of this book, I purchased a flawless copy of it at a library book sale for $5 (I believe it was an unread review copy). As an insatiable reader of Evolutionary Psychology books, I immediately read it, even though I have several thousand other books previously purchased from library sales waiting in my queue. This is one of the most entertaining books I have read, both in terms of its academic content and...
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