This radical, highly readable and absorbing narrative leads to a new understanding of human evolution.

100,000 years ago we became human, and technical, religious, artistic, military and criminal abilities emerged. The first modern humans migrated from Africa to Eurasia and Australasia, carrying with them the genetic basis of schizophrenia, the only major illness found to the same extent in all racial groups. Modern evidence shows that families where schizophrenia is present are also exceptionaly creative in many different fields. Albert Einstein and James Joyce each had a schizophrenic child. David Horrobin draws on his knowledge of evolution, medicine and psychiatry to generate a startling hypothesis: we are human because some of us are schizophrenic and because a “touch of schizophrenia” is associated with that creativity which defines us and separates us from our nearest primate relatives.