At long last, social connection is recognized as critical to wellness and longevity. She meets scientists at the frontiers of brain and genetics research and discovers that friendship is reflected in our brain waves, our genomes, and our cardiovascular and immune systems its opposite, loneliness, can kill. Denworth sees this urge to connect reflected in primates, too, taking us to a monkey sanctuary in Puerto Rico and a baboon colony in Kenya to examine social bonds that offer insight into our own. She finds friendship to be as old as early life on the African savannas―when tribes of people grew large enough for individuals to seek fulfillment of their social needs outside their immediate families. In Friendship, science journalist Lydia Denworth takes us in search of friendship’s biological, psychological, and evolutionary foundations. But what makes these bonds not just pleasant but essential, and how do they affect our bodies and our minds? Friends, after all, are the family we choose. The phenomenon of friendship is universal and elemental. A Next Big Idea Club Must-Read Nonfiction Book of Winter 2020.Ī revelatory investigation of friendship, with profound implications for our understanding of what humans and animals alike need to thrive across a lifetime.
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