Heroes, Rogues, and Lovers

"In Heroes, Rogues, and Lovers, Dr. Dabbs provides us with a engaging overview of the state of knowledge about testosterone and its impact on human psychology, from prehistory to the present. Drawing upon original studies conducted with more than 8000 men, women, and children, as well as the world literature on the subject, he interweaves intimate case histories with first-hand scientific research to explore testosterone's role in virtually every aspect of human mind and destiny. He describes how it affects everything from language ability, cognition, and spatial orientation, to the occupations we enter, and what kind of lovers, husbands, wives, and parents we become - even the way we smile. He explains how testosterone accounts for some of the differences in the ways that average men and women think and communicate. He shares the latest findings about the connections between testosterone and criminal behavior, altruism, and aggression, as well as surprising recent revelations about which professions display both the highest and lowest concentrations of testosterone. And he explores testosterone's role in human evolution and how this most social of hormones has influenced the development of human society, from the start."--Jacket.

Beyond its central premise, the book can be read through the connected lenses of Nonfiction. Those themes offer useful points of attention as the characters, ideas, or world develop, especially where the book complicates the expectations of its primary category.