Books by Steven Pinker

'Dazzling...Pinker's big idea is that language is an instinct...as innate to us as flying is to geese...Words can hardly do justice to the superlative range and liveliness of Pinker's investigations'- Independent'A marvellously readable book...illuminates every facet of human language: its biological origin, its uniqueness to humanity, it acquisition by children, its grammatical structure, the production and perception of speech, the pathology of language disorders and the unstoppable evolution of languages and dialects' - Nature

Can violence really have declined? The images of conflict we see daily on our screens from around the world suggest this is an almost obscene claim to be making. In this title, the author shows violence within and between societies - both murder and warfare.

What is the secret of good prose? Does writing well even matter in an age of instant communication? Should we care? This book tells about the modern art of writing, and shows us why we all need a sense of style.

'Powerful and gripping... To have read it is to have consulted a first draft of the structural plan of the human psyche ... a glittering tour de force' Spectator Why do we laugh? What makes memories fade? Why do people believe in ghosts? From the acclaimed author of Enlightenment Now and Better Angels of Our Nature, How the Mind Works explores every aspect of mental life, showing that our minds are not a mystery, but a system of organs of computation designed by natural selection.'Pinker's objective in this erudite account is to explore the nature and history of the human mind ... He explores computations and evolutions, and then considers how the mind lets us "e;see, think, feel, interact, and pursue higher callings like art, religion and philosophy' Sunday Times