416 pages ISBN : 2-914388-77-2 Summary What sets apart man from the animals? Is it language? Reason? Conscience? Creativity? What if these notions were nothing but snares? What if man’s true characteristic was above all his exceptional capability to imitate his fellow creatures? ‘We are, in the words of Susan Blackmore, contagious mimetic machines.’ According to the author, while genes use the human body to achieve the supremacy of its physical characters, memes ‘colonise’ our brain and are the mastering elements of our behaviour, habits and beliefs. Now, if altruism, faith, language and love are indeed controlled from the outside, can we still assert the existence of the Self? This cult book has shaken the international scientific community. Susan Blackmore graduated from St. Hilda’s College, Oxford, in 1973. She is a psychologist specialised in the field of consciousness and teaches memetic at the University of Bristol, England.
