The Creative Spark by Agustin Fuentes ***

Many disciplines strive to answer questions like these: What makes humans unique? Why have they been so successful? Recent progress in evolutionary biology, anthropology, and other diverse fields have provided novel suggestions, but the answer remains as elusive as ever. However, the two-decade success of Guns, Germs, and Steel by Jared Diamond has made such books a genre of their own. The Creative Spark by Agustin Fuentes is one of the latest entries putting forward the premise that creative collaboration is the answer.

I divide the book into three sections. The first section introduces the premise that collaborative creativity explains the two million years evolution and success of homo sapiens sapiens with the well-documented examples of tools and food. This section presents a developmental narrative supported by a wide variety of research results. The description of stone tool making is detailed and fascinating, well worth the price of admission.

The next section is a series of scholarly expositions on war, sex, religion, art, and science. Here is where the target audience seems to drift from the popular science reader to an academic reviewer. The premise only needs to show humans are creative, so virtually all research supports this premise. Even where the different research results are contradictory and conflicting, they are all presented. The result is chaotic and often I imagine the author forming his arguments for specific academic reviewers. This section is interspersed with digressions on various social issues such as race, gender, and religion.

The final section (called Coda) is a sermonette full of advice and more opinions on lifestyle choices:

So that's the two-step signature of a creative human life:
Embrace diversity.
See failure as part of the journey.

Specific directions include avoidance of vegan, raw, and paleo diets, and a final lecture on gender.

This is a book for the hardcore non-fiction reader. It drifts across the line separating popular science and scholarly science, thirty-three pages of notes for 292 pages of text. If you really love the premise, the first six chapters, 126 pages might the perfect place to stop. You are human; we are collaborating; be creative.