Interesting, but a little dry in places.

This was a well presented and researched book, but in 2023 it's 10 years old and almost all of the content has been either updated or covered in a 'more popular' book.

Fascinating perspective that argues strongly for relocating social needs as the bedrock of Maslow's pyramid--a central fact of our lives, from the brain out, rather than optional "needs." Lieberman makes a slew of connections between social psychology, biology, economics and political science, full of familiar academic and cultural references. I hope in future research he looks at how wiring for sensitivity/insensitivity (both have complementary value to society) and introversion/extroversion (which are innate temperamental orientations) relate to larger findings about social needs and the benefits of orienting our cultural and economic structures to better meet those needs. It also poses questions for me about how natural inclinations towards collectivism are, and how much increasing rates of anxiety and depression are fueled by a culture/society that actively cuts off avenues for meeting social needs, particularly in the anti-collectivist US.

Well this book definitely brought me back to the coursework for my undergraduate Psychology degree!

This was a very interesting and thorough summary of a lot of different studies on the brain and the way it is wired for social interactions. It is interesting to read about the brain and the way the newest imaging tests are now able to pinpoint areas of that are responsible for a humans interest and need for social circles. And whether you are ok with animal testing or not, it is also amazing to see just how similar different animals are to us.

The last three chapters are a wonderful summary of the point of the book, including a look at the impact of social media on our lives and really our happiness and contentment.

Good information but reads as boring as a thesis. Dumbing it down to just refer to part of the brain as the reward system rather than its scientific name could go a long way. Also a lot of resummaries of the same information over and over but I'm supposed to remember hella technical terms? Ok.

interesting read!

The central argument of this book is that the default state of our brains, based largely on functional MRI (fMRI) scans, is being social and connected to others. When we are not doing anything, in so called idle state, our brain fMRI looks like when we are being social. And in that state of doing nothing we mostly think about other people.

Then Mr. Lieberman forces that argument, in rest of the book, to a conclusion that being social is like one of our basic needs for air, water, food and shelter.

My main criticism of this book is that his whole premise is based mainly on functional MRI scans, whose validity, for conclusions that Mr. Lieberman is drawing, is yet to be proven. It is like listening to something in translation, not knowing how faithful the translation is, and then making conclusions based on uncertain translation.

And he really does not go much into the issue of people who like to be loners, whose comfortable state is to be alone and who are distressed in social situations. How do they survive (and sometimes thrive) without the basic need of being social?

Mr. Lieberman has done a decent job of turning a dry and technical subject readable enough for most people but I feel the conclusions, especially from functional MRI studies, are overdrawn.

As far as textbooks/required reading go, this book is actually fantastic, and I learned a lot from it! I guarantee that I'll continue to reference it in the future.
I'd give it like 4.5 stars because I thought that the conversation surrounding autism missed the mark for me. At one point autism was referred to as "a tragic storm", and while I understand that from a neurotypical/allistic perspective the mechanics of autism might seem "sad," I think it's a mistake to assume that that reflects the lived experiences of people with autism. There were a few other points in the book where I was rubbed the wrong way about commentary on autism, but suffice to say that if one is willing to overlook the overgeneralizations about autism (including some "comclusions" that seem to really stretch the scope of the actual research), the rest of the contents of this book are phenomenal and very eye opening.