How History Gets Things Wrong Audiobook By Alex Rosenberg cover art

How History Gets Things Wrong

The Neuroscience of Our Addiction to Stories

Preview

Try for $0.00
Prime logo Prime members: New to Audible?
Get 2 free audiobooks during trial.
Pick 1 audiobook a month from our unmatched collection.
Listen all you want to thousands of included audiobooks, Originals, and podcasts.
Access exclusive sales and deals.
Premium Plus auto-renews for $14.95/mo after 30 days. Cancel anytime.

How History Gets Things Wrong

By: Alex Rosenberg
Narrated by: Mikael Naramore
Try for $0.00

$14.95/month after 30 days. Cancel anytime.

Buy for $25.00

Buy for $25.00

Confirm purchase
Pay using card ending in
By confirming your purchase, you agree to Audible's Conditions of Use and Amazon's Privacy Notice. Taxes where applicable.
Cancel

About this listen

Why we learn the wrong things from narrative history, and how our love for stories is hard-wired.

To understand something, you need to know its history. Right? Wrong, says Alex Rosenberg in How History Gets Things Wrong. Feeling especially well-informed after reading a book of popular history on the best-seller list? Don't. Narrative history is always, always wrong. It not just incomplete or inaccurate but deeply wrong, as wrong as Ptolemaic astronomy. We no longer believe that the earth is the center of the universe. Why do we still believe in historical narrative? Our attachment to history as a vehicle for understanding has a long Darwinian pedigree and a genetic basis. Our love of stories is hard-wired. Neuroscience reveals that human evolution shaped a tool useful for survival into a defective theory of human nature.

Stories historians tell, Rosenberg continues, are not only wrong but harmful. Israel and Palestine, for example, have dueling narratives of dispossession that prevent one side from compromising with the other. Henry Kissinger applied lessons drawn from the Congress of Vienna to American foreign policy with disastrous results. Human evolution improved primate mind reading - the ability to anticipate the behavior of others, whether predators, prey, or cooperators - to get us to the top of the African food chain. Now, however, this hard-wired capacity makes us think we can understand history - what the Kaiser was thinking in 1914, why Hitler declared war on the United States - by uncovering the narratives of what happened and why. In fact, Rosenberg argues, we will only understand history if we don't make it into a story.

©2018 Brilliance Audio, Inc.by Massachusetts Institute of Technology. (P)2019 Brilliance Publishing, Inc., all rights reserved.
Biological Sciences Historiography History Neuroscience Addiction
activate_Holiday_promo_in_buybox_DT_T2

What listeners say about How History Gets Things Wrong

Average customer ratings
Overall
  • 4 out of 5 stars
  • 5 Stars
    18
  • 4 Stars
    5
  • 3 Stars
    4
  • 2 Stars
    4
  • 1 Stars
    5
Performance
  • 4.5 out of 5 stars
  • 5 Stars
    19
  • 4 Stars
    4
  • 3 Stars
    5
  • 2 Stars
    0
  • 1 Stars
    1
Story
  • 3.5 out of 5 stars
  • 5 Stars
    13
  • 4 Stars
    6
  • 3 Stars
    4
  • 2 Stars
    3
  • 1 Stars
    4

Reviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.

Sort by:
Filter by:
  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

only read biography & history books for enjoyment

a thorough dismantling of the structure of modern society via puncturing reliance on the theory of mind & mind reading used when recording narrative history if the purpose of studying or reading it is in order to interpret history as a primary tool to build for the present or plan for the future rather than for sheer entertainment and enjoyment.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

2 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

Excelente book

these book is quite interesting and the facts and histories presented stressed the why this book is really important to read.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

Brilliant

Although there is at least one theoretical problem attached: how can we have a historical ontology without narrative history? Besides that: strongly recommend for listening!

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

  • Overall
    1 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    3 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    1 out of 5 stars

Misleading title

This book was awful.
The title is inaccurate.

The language is overly academic. The format is tedious. It never comes to any real conclusion.
Irony is railing against narrative history while using a narrative to do it. My eyes rolled so hard into the back of my head, I’m now blinded.
Save your money and your time.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

1 person found this helpful