Allen & Unwin The Village Effect book Psychology English Paperback 432 pages

Blending cutting edge science with compelling personal narrative, bestselling author Susan Pinker examines the transformative power of human relationships and radically challenges our long-held assumptions about lifespan and happiness.

Marrying the findings of the new field of social neuroscience together with gripping human stories, award-winning author and psychologist Susan Pinker explores the impact of face-to-face contact from cradle to grave, from city to Sardinian mountain village, from classroom to workplace, from love to marriage to divorce.Her results are enlightening and enlivening, and they challenge our assumptions. Most of us have left the literal village behind, and don't want to give up our new technologies to go back there. But, as Pinker writes so compellingly, we need close social bonds and uninterrupted face-time with our friends and families in order to thrive - even to survive.Creating our own 'village effect' can make us happier. It can also save our lives.

Susan Pinker is a developmental psychologist, journalist, and author whose first book, The Sexual Paradox, won the American Psychological Association's most prestigious literary prize, the William James Book Award, and was published in seventeen countries. A national columnist, lecturer, and broadcaster whose work has garnered many writing awards, Pinker's ideas have been featured in The Times, the Guardian, The Economist, the Globe and Mail, the New York Times, The Atlantic, the Financial Times, Der Spiegel, and O, The Oprah Magazine, among other publications. She lives in Montreal.