A Left-Handed History of the World

Growing up in Asia, I was often told that being left handed was wrong and strange. I didn’t understand it and asked my mom if something was wrong with me. My mom eventually bought me this book to cheer me up about myself and I just adored it as a kid. I know now that being left handed doesn’t change much, but as a kid seeing that so many well known people were left handed made me realize that it wasn’t something “unnatural”. So for kids who are left handed that need a bit of a confidence boost I’d say this is a great book!

Ed Wright does some speculation about characteristics of lefties. There is a lack of scientific references to studies and statistics to prove his point that lefties are different from right handers in their behavior and thinking. I thought he overstreched sometimes to fit lefty characteristics into his thesis and to see patterns that might not be there. This is fun coffee table book with some great artwork and pictures. Wright pulls out some of the most famous and successful lefthanders in history and talks about the similar characteristics that they share with other lefties. Being left handed is a mixed bag. It increases chances of being brilliant, but also increases chances of being insane or antisocial, for instance. Lefty traits often are intuitiveness, empathy, visual spatial ability, lateral thinking, hot temper, solitariness, iconoclasm, self teaching, experimentation, and fantasies. (Lateral thinking involves making unorthodox connections between unrelated things.) Lefties are also overrepresented in prisons and in tendencies to be homosexual. Lefties are prone to schizophrenia and addictions. They are good at math and science in general. I will name some names of vaunted lefties. I thought most interesting lefty stories were Nietzsche, Henry Ford, John McEnroe, and Isaac Newton. Nietzsche's goal of overturning Christianity could be related to his left handed way of turning things inside out. Was Henry Ford's paranoia inextricably linked to his innovativeness? The tennis matches between the right-handed Borg and McEnroe was a good story about how a right handers and lefties play against each other. Was McEnroe anger based on egotism or self- loathing? Did Isaac Newton's anti-social behavior and fantasies make him more brilliant? There have been some left handed presidents such as Truman, Reagan, Ford, Bush, Obama, and Clinton. Empathy and acting skills in lefthanders may explain their ability to become President. A lot of actors are left-handed. Unorthodox strategies and the ability to visual battle fields explain successes of lefty generals such as Caesar, Napoleon, and Alexander the Great. Wright suggest that lefthanders are harbingers of change that breaks through the orthodoxy, rigidness, oppression of the right handed world that righthanders are comfortable in, Perhaps this explains the rage in lefthanders. Lefthanders also do well in emerging trends in business or music before orthodox patterns have been set. I suppose it's cool to be disadvantaged these days. Are lefthanders just another dubious victim of oppression? I never felt that being left handed was a big deal, but no one tried to "right" me, so I don't feel persecuted like the lefties of the past. Strong pressure to make lefthanders "right" existed in the past revealing society's strong urge to force others into conformity. About ten percent of human population is left handed. 50 Percent are left handed among other mammals.