Via politicaltheory.info, here’s a review of The First Idea: How Symbols, Language, and Intelligence Evolved from our Primate Ancestors to Modern Humans by Stanley Greenspan and Stuart Shanker.
“Here is a book that gives new meaning to the old saying, ‘The hand that rocks the cradle rules the world.’ Its authors, one a psychiatrist and the other a psychologist and philosopher, have teamed up to tackle the momentous question of how humans developed language. Fearing not to challenge some of the heavyweights of modern science, from Jean Piaget to Noam Chomsky and Steven Pinker, they present their own theory: The development of language is connected primarily with affect rather than cognition, with the emotional learning that occurs in infants in the arms of those who love them. That is, language is rooted not in genes, not in the wiring of brains, but in behaviors we have learned over millenniums.”