The Creative Spark

In the tradition of Jared Diamond's million-copy-selling classic Guns Germs and Steel a bold new synthesis of paleontology archaeology genetics and anthropology that overturns misconceptions about race war and peace and human nature itself answering an age-old question: What made humans so exceptional among all the species on Earth? Creativity. It is the secret of what makes humans special hiding in plain sight. Agustín Fuentes argues that your child's finger painting comes essentially from the same place as creativity in hunting and gathering millions of years ago and throughout history in making war and peace in intimate relationships in shaping the planet in our communities and in all of art religion and even science. It requires imagination and collaboration. Every poet has her muse; every engineer an architect; every politician a constituency. The manner of the collaborations varies widely but successful collaboration is inseparable from imagination and it brought us everything from knives and hot meals to iPhones and interstellar spacecraft. Weaving fascinating stories of our ancient ancestors' creativity Fuentes finds the patterns that match modern behavior in humans and animals. This key quality has propelled the evolutionary development of our bodies minds and cultures both for good and for bad. It's not the drive to reproduce nor competition for mates or resources or power nor our propensity for caring for one another that has separated us out from all other creatures. As Fuentes concludes to make something lasting and useful today you need to understand the nature of your collaboration with others what imagination can and can't accomplish and finally just how completely our creativity is responsible for the world we live in. Agustín Fuentes' resounding multimillion-year perspective will inspire listeners - and spark all kinds of creativity.