At the close of the last century of creativity and discovery, humanists and scientists alike wonder: How could human beings in all their brilliance – those “axemakers” with the genius to invent, lead, inspire, heal, design – have brought the world to the brink of destruction? The answers can be found in The Axemaker’s Gift, an imaginative and brilliantly informed double-edged history of human culture. James Burke, a leading expert on the interaction of technology and society, and Robert Ornstein, a pioneer in charting the evolution of consciousness, show how the interaction between innovation and the brain has continually reshaped the world and, more important, the way we think.