Why We Think What We Think: The Unexpected Origins of Our Deepest Beliefs

'Fizzing with insights and ideas... I loved it'Jenny Kleeman, author of The Price of Life‘Fascinating, incredibly valuable and accessible - a compelling view of why we see the world and each other the way we do’Bobby Duffy, author of The Perils of PerceptionWithout knowing it, almost all our opinions - whether we believe in God or in ghosts, our views on sex or animal rights or immigration, our basic sense of what’s right - are shaped by an astounding web of hidden forces.The age-old idea that our views are forged by reason and evidence alone is wrong: we are influenced by everything from the quirks of distant history, through the lines of our genetic code, to the geology of where we grew up. This eye-opening book takes us through culture, biology, geography, history, psychology and much more to uncover the hidden DNA of our opinions.It reveals:Why the descendants of rice farmers have fundamentally different social values to the descendants of grain farmersHow our physical appearance s