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Elation, mood swings, sleeplessness, and obsession—these are the tell-tale signs of someone in the throes of romantic passion. In this revealing new book, renowned anthropologist Helen Fisher explains why this experience—which cuts across time, geography, and gender—is a force as powerful as the need for food or sleep.
Why We Love begins by presenting the results of a scientific study in which Fisher scanned the brains of people who had just fallen madly in love. She proves, at last, what researchers had only suspected: when you fall in love, primordial areas of the brain "light up" with increased blood flow, creating romantic passion. Fisher uses this new research to show exactly what you experience when you fall in love, why you choose one person rather than another, and how romantic love affects your sex drive and your feelings of attachment to a partner. She argues that all animals feel romantic attraction, that love at first sight comes out of nature, and that human romance evolved for crucial reasons of survival. Lastly, she offers concrete suggestions on how to control this ancient passion, and she optimistically explores the future of romantic love in our chaotic modern world.
Provocative, enlightening, and persuasive, Why We Love offers radical new answers to the age-old question of what love is and thus provides invaluable new insights into keeping love alive.
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Creators
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Publisher
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Release date
December 4, 2018 -
Formats
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OverDrive Listen audiobook
- ISBN: 9781515956549
- File size: 263235 KB
- Duration: 09:08:24
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Languages
- English
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Reviews
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Narrator Marie Hoffman's vocal tone may sound gentle and innocent, but her performance of this exceptional audiobook is anything but. She presents this material with the clarity and confidence necessary for listeners to understand the author's enlightening research and insights. The scope and organization of this research are impressive. Literary and cultural references abound as the author explains what her surveys and other research reveal about romantic love--why we fall victim to it, how it affects people, how we recover from it, and how it can morph into a healthy romantic partnership. Much of this writing is sensitive, lyrical, even sentimental. Here, too, Hoffman's interpretations are faithful to those threads but never overplayed. She never allows the sentimental elements to overshadow the intellectual bounty. T.W. © AudioFile 2019, Portland, Maine -
December 15, 2003
Anthropologist Fisher argues that much of our romantic behavior is hard-wired in this provocative examination of love. Her case is bolstered by behavioral research into the effects of two crucial chemicals, norepinephrine and dopamine, and by surveys she conducted across broad populations. When we fall in love, she says, our brains create dramatic surges of energy that fuel such feelings as passion, obsessiveness, joy and jealousy. Fisher devotes a fascinating and substantial chapter to the appearance of romance and love among non-human animals, and composes careful theories about early humans in love. One of her many surprising conclusions suggests that, since "four-year birth intervals were the regular pattern of birth spacing during our long human prehistory," our modern brains still deal with relationships in serially monogamous terms of about four years. Indeed, Fisher gathered data from around the world showing that divorce was most prevalent in the fourth year of marriage, when a couple had a single dependent child. Fisher also reports on the behaviors that lead to successful lifelong partnerships and offers, based on what she's observed, numerous tips on staying in love. And though she's certain that chemicals are at love's heart, Fisher never loses her sense of the emotion's power or poetry.
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