Why We Think What We Think

This book is always fascinating but frequently mind-blowing

Marina Hyde, Guardian columnist and co-host of The Rest Is Entertainment

With a wealth of intriguing data, Munthe explains why robust debate is essential for a creative and healthy society. As he vividly puts it: thinking is a contact sport

Timothy Garton Ash, author of Free Speech and Guardian columnist

Fizzing with insights and ideas that will challenge the foundations of all you think you believe... I loved it

Jenny Kleeman, author of The Price of Life

Munthe’s questions are ancient but urgent… he presents the mind as a system oriented less toward truth than toward survival – and, crucially, toward belonging

Telegraph

Fascinating, incredibly valuable and accessible – Munthe knits together the wide and deep influences on our perceptions into a compelling view of why we see the world and each other the way we do

Bobby Duffy, author of The Perils of Perception

A thoughtful and expansive book about the roots of our most private beliefs. Written with a journalist’s curiosity and a storyteller’s verve, Why We Think What We Think explores how psychology, biology, history, and culture shape our opinions in surprising ways. Every reader will come away entertained, enlightened, and a little humbled -- and hopefully more prepared to face our polarising times

Leor Zmigrod, award-winning scientist and author of The Ideological Brain

If you think of yourself as a rational and thoughtful individual, who has spent time, care and energy weighing up the evidence, brace yourself. This book will peel the scales from your eyes. Entertaining as well as erudite, Munthe is the perfect guide to the murky underworld where our beliefs take shape.

Jackie Higgins, author of Sentient

In this lively and indispensable exploration of the origins of our opinions and the nature of our beliefs, Munthe reveals that engaging our differences is essential to human flourishing. A powerful defence of reasoned, civil disagreement

Robert B. Talisse, Professor of Philosophy at Vanderbilt University

In this provocative, wide-ranging, and wonderfully written book -- a delightful marriage of Jared Diamond and Charles Darwin -- Munthe shows that understanding the true source of our views is possible only by incorporating geology, humidity, food preferences, physiology, and genetics

John Hibbing, co-author of Predisposed