The Handshake bookcover

The Handshake

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Description

Friends do it, strangers do it and so do chimpanzees - and it's not just deeply embedded in our history and culture, it may even be written in our DNA. The humble handshake, it turns out, has a rich and surprising history. So let's join palaeoanthropologist Ella Al-Shamahi as she embarks on a funny and fascinating voyage of discovery - from the handshake's origins (at least seven million years ago) all the way to its sudden disappearance in March 2020. Drawing on new research, anthropological insights and first-hand experience, she'll reveal how this most friendly of gestures has played a role in everything from meetings with uncontacted tribes to political assassinations - and what it tells us about the enduring power of human contact.

Product Details

PublisherIps - Profile Books
Publish DateNovember 02, 2021
Pages176
LanguageEnglish
TypeBook iconPaperback / softback
EAN/UPC9781788167819
Dimensions7.7 X 5.0 X 0.6 inches | 0.4 pounds

About the Author

Ella Al-Shamahi is a National Geographic Explorer, palaeoanthropologist, evolutionary biologist and stand-up comic. Specialising in in Neanderthals, caves and expeditions in hostile, disputed and unstable territories, she is also a TV presenter, a TED speaker and has performed at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival. She has degrees in Genetics, Taxonomy and Biodiversity, and is currently undertaking her PhD in Palaeoanthropology.

Reviews

"Having not particularly missed shaking hands over the past year, I ended this very engaging little book so desperate to get started again that I'm in danger of becoming a super-spreader". - TELEGRAPH
"A fabulously sparky, wide-ranging and horizon-broadening little study ... joyously unboring" - SUNDAY TIMES "Al-Shamahi's beguiling book has a more general claim to attention than merely being an account of the crisis in manners that Covid has made ... cheerful, witty and well-researched". - SPECTATOR

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