The author rehabilitates unfashionable ideas, such as that the mind is a computer and that human nature was shaped by natural selection.  He challenges fashionable ones, such as that passionate emotions are irrational, that parents socialize their children, that creativity springs from the unconscious, that nature is good and modern society corrupting, and that art and religion are expressions of our higher spiritual yearnings.  This book is a synthesis of explanations of our mental life proposed in cognitive science and evolutionary biology, with insights from disciplines ranging from neuroscience to economics and social psychology.