Nowadays, everything, or almost everything, seems to get explained by our brain. Our happiness, misery, personalities and ways of consuming, our ability or lack thereof to change – whether individually or collectively – are all said to be hardwired by interactions between our neurons. From the personal to the political, it all comes down to the brain… even if that requires shortcuts, approximations, and even untruths that distort and betray precisely what neuroscientists are actually saying.

This book distinguishes fact from fiction in the epidemic of chatter about the brain and provides an up-to-date overview of where the science actually stands. That allows us to cast a critical gaze on those pretty MRI images and the spectacular claims about our neuronal interactions that are often seeking to manipulate rather than teach us anything useful. From behind a scrim of a few actual neuroscientific facts, they’re selling us everything from personal-development methods and pills that claim to fix our brains’ chemical imbalances to management techniques and plenty of other clichés…

By sharing real knowledge about the brain, Albert Moukheiber gives science its due and frees us from false beliefs. He invites us to learn so that we won’t get burned.