One Hand Clapping

Unraveling the Mystery of the Human Mind

Nikolay Kukushkin

$60.99

Hardback

Forthcoming
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English

Globe Pequot Press
07 October 2025

Psychological theory & schools of thought; Cognition & cognitive psychology; Evolution; Neurosciences

Neuroscientist Nikolay Kukushkin reveals the miracle by which consciousness evolved out of the natural world from the birth of the cell to the majesty of our modern minds.

Like the Zen Buddhist riddle pondering the imponderable -- the sound of a single hand clapping -- One Hand Clapping asks the seemingly impossible question of how the human mind came to exist within physical reality. In search of this answer, Kukushkin takes readers on a billion-year journey to the roots of ""nature's ideas"" which define a human being, from breathing and moving to wanting and liking. By simultaneously considering the origins of both the subjective and the objective sides of ""humanness,"" this revolutionary book embeds the very experience of being human, being alive, here, now, within a unified history of life on Earth.

Revealed by Kukushkin in vivid detail, this life on Earth is as incomprehensible as it is omnipresent, teeming with millions of legs, knots, thorns, and teeth among which we humans exist and from which we originate. For three and a half billion years life did so without us, and now, in the last moments of history, humanity has emerged from this menagerie of animals, plants, fungi, and microbes to ponder, for the first time, the nature of its own existence.

Using gleaming analysis, cutting-edge science, and whimsical doodles from the author, this elegant and absorbing book reaches deep into our oceanic past to show how the evolution of the most basic features of cells and molecules at the dawn of life on Earth ultimately led to the formation our own minds. It turns out that dinosaurs are to blame for human suffering, lungs exist thanks to lichens, and the major event in the life of our ancestors over the last eon was the transformation into worms. One Hand Clapping is the story of humans and our inner worlds, spanning the entire journey from inorganic molecules to the emergence of language, told as a mythical epic.

By: Nikolay Kukushkin
Imprint: Globe Pequot Press
Country of Publication: United States [Currently unable to ship to USA: see Shipping Info]
ISBN: 9781493090648
ISBN 10: 149309064X
Pages: 304
Publication Date: 07 October 2025
Audience: General/trade , ELT Advanced
Format: Hardback
Publisher's Status: Forthcoming

Dr. Nikolay Kukushkin is a Russian-born neuroscientist based in Brooklyn, NY, and is the author of the widely acclaimed One Hand Clapping, originally published in Russian in 2020. The book won the most prestigious book prize for Russian nonfiction, the Enlightener (Prosvetitel) Award, as well as the Alexander Belyaev Medal, awarded to the best Russian-language nonfiction and science fiction. Kukushkin is a clinical associate professor at New York University's Liberal Studies, and a research fellow at NYU's Center for Neural Science, where he studies the role of time patterns in memory formation. This book is loosely based on his acclaimed course at NYU, ""Life Science."" He holds degrees from St. Petersburg State University (Russia) and Oxford University, and received post-doctoral training at the Department of Cell Biology at Harvard Medical School. He has authored and co-authored multiple publications in prestigious scientific journals (Neuron, PNAS, Nature Medicine) including a recent groundbreaking paper in Nature Communications demonstrating canonical memory in non-neural cells. Prior to leaving Russia he had spent much of his life facing political turmoil, from the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991 when he was 3 years old, to the poverty and instability of 1990s, to the rise of authoritarianism in the 2000s and 2010s, which culminated in the ongoing invasion of Ukraine in 2022.

Reviews for One Hand Clapping: Unraveling the Mystery of the Human Mind

""It is a thrilling paradox to have the human mind read this work and learn its own origin, yet Kukushkin conquers it with ease... an instant classic."" -- ""Library Journal, Starred Review"" ""One Hand Clapping is a fun, engaging journey from the origins of life to the consciousness of human minds. Kukushkin sees the magic in the world and helps the reader see it, too. But not the impenetrable magic that wallows in mystery--instead, the kind of magic that leads to better questions, and deeper insight. Highly recommended to anyone who wants to better understand the world of molecules and why we are simultaneously in that world, but also, paradoxically, beyond it."" --Michael Levin, Distinguished Professor of Biology and Director of the Allen Discovery Center, Tufts University ""Dazzling and breathtaking.... Be prepared to abandon your pre-conceptions as Kukushkin takes readers on an audacious journey across the eons of life on Earth to arrive at one of the most thorough and yet provocative accounts for what makes humans the species we are. One Hand Clapping takes the scientific concepts of function, emergence, and recursion to new levels, freeing them from the tedium of simply technical explanations into jaw-dropping moments of insight that will leave you shaking with revelation. Do your brain a favor and read this masterpiece."" --Bruce Hood, author of The Self Illusion and The Science of Happiness ""Brilliant, bold, and beautifully articulated, One Hand Clapping is the best of biological thought. Starting with the origins of life, Kukushkin deftly solves the chicken-and-egg problem, moves gracefully to the notion of emergence, and concludes with a compelling account of ourselves as curious creatures, co-constructing our cultural niches -- and all that entails for being you and me."" --Karl J. Friston, Professor of Neuroscience, University College London