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The Secret Life of Metaphor and How it Shapes the Way We See the World
HarperCollins
February 2011
On Sale: February 8, 2011
308 pages ISBN: 0061710288 EAN: 9780061710285 Hardcover
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Non-Fiction
From President Obama's political rhetoric to the housing
bubble bust, James Geary proves in this fascinating and
entertaining book that every aspect of our experience is
molded by metaphor. "It is the East, and Juliet is the
sun!" This is one of Shakespeare's most famous lines and
one of the most well-known metaphors in literature. But
metaphor is much more than a mere literary device employed
by love-struck poets when they refer to their girlfriends
as interstellar masses of incandescent gas. It is also intensely yet inconspicuously present in
everything from ordinary conversation and commercial
messaging to news reports and political speeches. Metaphor
is at work in all fields of human endeavor, including
economics, business, science, and psychology. In I Is an
Other, James Geary takes readers from Aristotle's
investigation of metaphor right up to the latest
neuroscientific insights into how metaphor works in the
brain. Along the way, he demonstrates how metaphor affects
financial decision making, how metaphor lurks behind
effective advertisements, how metaphor inspires learning
and discovery, and how metaphor can be used as a tool to
achieve emotional insight and psychological change. Geary
also explores how a life without metaphor, as experienced
by some people with autism spectrum disorders,
significantly changes the way a person interacts with the
world. As Geary demonstrates, metaphor has leaped off the
page and landed with a mighty splash right in the middle
of our stream of consciousness. Witty, persuasive, and
original, I Is an Other showcases how a simple way with
words, which in the past was considered a tool only for
poets, is really a driving force in our society. This book
will open your eyes to the secret life of metaphor and its
role in swinging elections, moving markets, and powerfully
influencing daily life.
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