Why We Snap: Understanding the Rage Circuit in Your Brain

Neuroscientist Fields provides insight into the seemingly inexplicable: sudden switches into violent behavior, an all-too-familiar narrative that often ends in collective tragedy. From road rage to public shootings, he explores manifestations of the human instinct to kill—which Fields views as universal and evolutionarily hardwired into our brains. This discussion, for all its relevance to contemporary society, can become unwieldy, but Fields knows when to use stories, including anecdotes from his own life, and when to rely on academic material, such as his own discipline. Even the most scientific passages are personalized and placed in a narrative context, and while his friendly and informative tone can occasionally be excessively digressive, it results in a highly readable survey. Most distinctive is Fields’s self-created mnemonic device, LIFEMORTS, an acronym for triggers to violence: life or limb; insult; family; environment; mate; order in society; resources; tribe; stopped. Recognizing these triggers, he claims, can prevent tragedy. Fields shines a thoughtful and essential light on one of the darkest aspects of human behavior. Agent: Andrew Stuart, Stuart Agency. (Jan.)