000 02077nam a2200265Ia 4500
999 _c399
_d399
003 DE-boiza
005 20191218132934.0
008 190909
020 _a0-7538-1355-6
040 _cIZA
100 _aMcManus, Chris
_91267
245 0 _aRight Hand, Left Hand: The Origins of Asymmetry in Brains, Bodies, Atoms and Cultures
250 _a5th impr.
260 _c2003
_bPhoenix,
_aLondon,
300 _a460 pages
340 _hZ0 09
520 _aA labor of love and enthusiasm as well as deep scientific knowledge, Right Hand, Left Hand takes the reader on a trip through history, around the world, and into the cosmos, to explore the place of handedness in nature and culture. Chris McManus considers evidence from anthropology, particle physics, the history of medicine, and the notebooks of Leonardo to answer questions like: Why are most people right-handed? Are left-handed people cognitively different from right-handers? Why is the heart almost always on the left side of the body? Why does European writing go from left to right, while Arabic and Hebrew go from right to left? Why do tornadoes spin counter-clockwise in the northern hemisphere and clockwise in the southern hemisphere? And how do we know that Jack the Ripper was left-handed? McManus reminds readers that distinctions between right and left have been profoundly meaningful—imbued with moral and religious meaning—in societies throughout history, and suggests that our preoccupation with laterality may originate in our asymmetric bodies, which emerged from 550 million years of asymmetric vertebrate evolution, and may even be linked to the asymmetric structure of matter. With speculations embedded in science, Right Hand, Left Hand offers entertainment and new insight to scientists and general readers alike.
650 _aculture
_91152
650 _acultural history
_95704
650 _aanthropology
_95773
653 _aright-left
653 _ahandedness
856 _uhttps://www.hup.harvard.edu/catalog.php?isbn=9780674016132&content=toc
_yPublisher's website
942 _cBO
_2ddc