The style is lively and engaging, but the biggest surprise is how funny it is, with more laugh-out-loud lines than you ever thought you’d read in a book about psychology (other than that did you enjoy the play, Mrs Lincoln?’).

For a long time after Dawkins introduced and galvanised a new generation to Darwin’s ideas it was fashionable to consider us essentially selfish, the smooth running of society arising organically out of mass competition. More recent theories claim altruism’s actually been as successful a survival strategy as rivalry

We tend to view brain states (right/left, reason/emotion) as warring factions, but neuroscientist and magazine editor Lehrer presents a refreshing case that these either/or propositions actually work together to give our consciousness the best representation of our environment, our most prized ability in our hunter/gatherer days.