‘Creativity is the exclusive and defining trait of our types; and its ultimate goal, self-understanding,’ begins Edward O. Wilson’s sweeping study of the humanities and its own relationship to the sciences. By studying fields as varied as paleontology, evolutionary biology, and neuroscience, Wilson demonstrates that individual creativity began not 10,000 years ago, as we’ve long assumed, but over 100,000 years back in the Paleolithic Age group. Chronicling the evolution of imagination from primates to human beings, Wilson shows how the humanities, in large component spurred on with the invention of vocabulary, have played a previously unexamined part in defining our types. Exploring a surprising range of innovative endeavors-the instinct to generate gardens, the use of metaphors and irony in speech, the energy of music and melody- Wilson proposes a transformational ‘Third Enlightenment’ in which the blending of research and humanities will enable a deeper knowledge of the individual condition and exactly how it eventually originated.