Hands
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  • Published: 2 June 2016
  • ISBN: 9780241973998
  • Imprint: Penguin eBooks
  • Format: EBook
  • Pages: 176

Hands

What We Do with Them – and Why

Formats & editions
EBook
2 Jun 2016
Audiobook
2 Jun 2016
Paperback
18 Sep 2017
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A new approach to human history and psychology examining where and when we use our hands, how this has changed - and why

The history of civilization is a history of what humans do with their hands. Inventing tools, writing records, operating machinery, learning to type, to text, to swipe: mankind's progress to modern society has been a steady evolution of how we use our hands.

Why do we play with our fingers when nervous? What causes us to doodle while concentrating? Why are the motions of cooking soothing and the motions of online gaming addictive? And what happens when we are prevented from using our hands altogether?

Drawing examples from popular culture, art history, technology and clinical research, Darian Leader explores how the things we do with our hands reflect our psychological state - and can also change that state profoundly.
  • Published: 2 June 2016
  • ISBN: 9780241973998
  • Imprint: Penguin eBooks
  • Format: EBook
  • Pages: 176
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About the author

Darian Leader

Darian Leader is a psychoanalyst practising in London and a member of the Centre for Freudian Analysis and Research.

portrait photo of Darian Leader

Also by Darian Leader

Is It Ever Just Sex?
Why Can't We Sleep?
Strictly Bipolar
What Is Madness?
The New Black
Why Do People Get Ill?
See all

Praise for Hands

A breezy cultural history of fidgeting

Times Literary Supplement

An intriguing meditation on how vital our hands are to our understanding of ourselves and our world

The Times

Leader is a psychoanalyst with a sideline in smart, elegant books that explain ourselves to ourselves without using the jargon of clinical literature

Guardian

Publisher's description. Why do we play with our fingers when nervous? Why do zombies walk with their hands out? What connects prayer beads with iPhones? Journey down the psychoanalytic rabbit hole to discover the strange and fascinating secrets of what our hands really say about us...

Penguin