Out on 30 October 2025
Book cover for Warhead

Warhead

Synopsis

Details

30 October 2025
336 pages
9781035013982
Imprint: Macmillan

Reviews

A mind-expanding journey through the literal war for our minds. Combines neuroscience, history and memoir in the best traditions of popular science and military history. Invigorating, educational and entertaining
This remarkable book charts the living history of war and conflict, from what unfolds on the evening news to spellbinding examples from military history. Nicholas Wright’s analysis of our capacity for planning, introspection, perspective taking and metacognition lays bare our capacity for deceit, dehumanisation and destruction. However, the books dénouement revisits these fundamentals of the human mind, and they point to another path – a path in which the horrors of war can be avoided through our complementary capacities for consciousness, communication and construction
In a survival scenario, such as war, fundamental questions arise: How do we survive hunger? How can we think when tired? How do we detect deception? How do we choose our collaborators? In war, if we can’t answer these questions, we will doom ourselves and many others as well. In this distinctive and fascinating book, Nick Wright reminds us of the true importance of all the various brain functions, wherever they may be in the brain's hierarchy of function
This is a lively, ingenious and original book. Taking us on a journey through the distinctive parts of the brain, Nicholas Wright is able to make human behaviour during the extreme circumstances of war make more sense