By Dacher Keltner

If human beings are hardwired to pursue self-interest, to compete, and to gratify their desires, how do we understand the prevalence of such emotions as compassion, modesty, and awe that occur in social groups worldwide?

The author answers this question in this startling new study of human emotion. He reveals that much of Western thought has been blind to the role that positive emotions play in being good; perhaps survival is NOT a matter of who is the fittest, but who is the kindest.

Revealing the unspoken language of every facial movement, bodily gesture, and vocal tone, often with fascinating illustrations, Keltner charts the highly coordinated patterns of behavior that have been honed through thousands of generations of evolution and that enable individuals to bring out the good in others to completion.

He suggests that the secret to happiness lies in the balance of bad and good in your life and shows that the simplest of touches and the slightest of smiles are encoded signals of our innate capacity to engage with others in cooperative communities.

This book, filled with the latest studies influenced by evolution, neuroscience, psychology, and Eastern thought, will inspire you to view human behavior in a new light and promote your understand of how to live the good life for yourself. 352 pages. Hardcover. January 2009.

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