Get Free Shipping on orders over $49
Hands : What We Do with Them - and Why - Darian Leader

Hands

What We Do with Them - and Why

By: Darian Leader

Paperback | 6 July 2017 | Edition Number 1

At a Glance

Paperback


RRP $32.99

$30.75

or 4 interest-free payments of $7.69 with

 or 

Ships in 15 to 25 business days

How much do you really know about your own hands? Throughout history , civilisations have been defined by the work of human hands: inventing tools, writing records, operating machinery, typing, texting, swiping. But beneath this known history is another, secret story: our hands are not the obedient servants that they seem to be.

Through conscious and unconscious gesture, they reveal our deepest psychology, our weaknesses and obsessions, our personal history and our social conditioning. Why do zombies walk with their hands outstretched? How does a new-born baby 'talk' with his hands? What is the connection between prayer beads, snuff boxes and cell phones? And most importantly, can we unlock the mystery of our hands in order to truly know ourselves?The key to understanding everything around you - and everything within you - is staring you in the face.

Take a journey through fascinating anecdotes and brilliant psychoanalytic research, through a legacy of ideas from da Vinci to Dickens to Die Hard. With wit and dexterity, Darian Leader reveals that there's much more to your hands than meets the eye.

About the Author

Darian Leader is a psychoanalyst practising in London and a member of the Centre for Freudian Analysis and Research.
Industry Reviews
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 *
A breezy cultural history of fidgeting * Times Literary Supplement *
Leader is a psychoanalyst with a sideline in smart, elegant books that explain ourselves to ourselves without using the jargon of clinical literature * Guardian *
An intriguing meditation on how vital our hands are to our understanding of ourselves and our world * The Times *

More in Social & Cultural History

The Dog's Gaze : A Visual History - Thomas W. Laqueur

RRP $85.00

$61.99

27%
OFF
The Country House Dining Room : A History of Georgian Feasting - Amy Boyington
I, Vera : The Many Lives of Vera Gedroits, a Radical Princess - Miranda Seymour
Retro Women : The Evolution of Women - Juanita Dodige

RRP $35.00

$27.75

21%
OFF
Divide & Rule : Royal Women and their Battles - Catherine Mayer

RRP $36.99

$29.99

19%
OFF
The Voynich Manuscript - Raymond Clemens

RRP $82.95

$60.75

27%
OFF
Abandoned Women : Scottish Convicts Exiled Beyond the Seas - Lucy Frost
Dark Emu : Aboriginal Australia and the Birth of Agriculture - Bruce Pascoe
Goliath's Curse : The History and Future of Societal Collapse - Luke Kemp
The Dawn of Everything : A New History of Humanity - David Graeber
The Town Like No Other : A Story of Broken Hill - Robert McLean

RRP $32.99

$28.75

13%
OFF
Goliath's Curse : The History and Future of Societal Collapse - Luke Kemp
Entitled : The Rise and Fall of the House of York - Andrew Lownie

RRP $37.99

$19.00

50%
OFF
Lessons of History - Will Durant

RRP $32.99

$19.75

40%
OFF
The Origins of Totalitarianism : Penguin Modern Classics - Hannah Arendt
Women & Power : A Manifesto - Mary Beard

RRP $19.99

$17.75

11%
OFF
Middlemarch : Collins Classics - George Eliot