Left-handedness seems no big deal. After all, it didn't stop anyone from becoming President of the United States. Many of us - just like Barack Obama - are left-handed and those of us who aren't don't really give left-handedness any thought. Yet throughout history left-handedness has been associated with clumsiness and with unpleasant traits such as untrustworthiness and insincerity. Just look at the Latin word for left, sinister, redolent of all kinds of ominous connotations. For author Rik Smits, left-handedness is a puzzle. Why has history been so unkind to our left-handed forebears? In this book he carefully puts together the pieces of the puzzle, presenting an array of historical anecdotes, strange superstitions and weird wives' tales. In 38 brief and entertaining chapters, he relates how left-handedness was and is associated with maladies of all kinds, including mental retardation, alcoholism, asthma, hay fever, homosexuality, cancer, diabetes, insomnia, suicidal urges and criminality. Even the twentieth-century has its opponents - or are these just advocates for right-handedness? - with one prominent psychologist announcing it was tantamount to 'infantile negativism', the equivalent of a refusal to eat everything on your plate; and another psychologist claiming left-handed people had lifespans nine years shorter than average. As Smits reminds us, speculation about left-handed mortality was and remains public entertainment - hardly the stuff of real illness. The Puzzle of Left-handedness is an enlightening, engaging, and often entertaining odyssey through the puzzles and paradoxes, endless philosophizing and theorizing, of left-handedness lore.

About the Author

Rik Smits is a linguist and science journalist and is the author of Dawn: How Language Made Man (2009). He is left-handed.

Table of Contents

1 Malice and Misunderstanding 7 2 The Left-handed Picador 12 3 Opposites and Contradictions 17 4 Taboos, Sex and Handicrafts 23 5 Lovers of the Left 29 6 Magic and Superstition 36 7 The True Nature of Left and Right 47 8 Strange Creatures in the Uncanny Valley 52 9 Witchcraft and Pogroms 60 10 Factionalism 71 11 The Ideal Warrior 77 12 The Polymorphism of One-sidedness 82 13 The Heart of the Matter 89 14 The Power of Small Differences 94 15 How Freud Found his Right Side and Pooh Didn't 98 16 Why a Running Rabbit Doesn't Tear Itself Apart 104 17 Tintin's Law 115 18 Dead Men and Voluptuous Women 125 19 Mary's Little Troublemaker and Other Portraits 135 20 Little Johnny Cries to the Left, Little Johnny Smiles to the Left 143 Contents 21 The Circle Dance of the Alphabet 148 22 The Weight of the Liver 158 23 The Morbid Views of Abram Blau 162 24 Thwacking and Hurling 166 25 Thinking About Brains 175 26 Animal Crackers 199 27 Other Asymmetries and Preferences 203 28 Tallying Up 210 29 Genetic Left-handedness 218 30 Hormonal Left-handedness 226 31 How Even Detrimental Characteristics Can Survive 234 32 Left-handers as Undercover Twins 243 33 The Consequences: Contrary, Perverse and Sick 250 34 Two Left Hands: The Ford Scale 255 35 The Things That Things Make Us Do 261 36 Writing and Other Useful Handiwork 267 37 The Myth of High Left-handed Mortality 277 38 Creative, Musical, Brilliant and Famous! 283 Bibliography 286 Photo Acknowledgements 297 Index 298

Reviews

'There is a "whiff of negativity" around left-handedness, admits the science journalist and lefthander Rik Smits in this fascinating study of the phenomenon ... popular legends about left-handedness - and left v right in general - are scarcely less virulent, and Smits dispatches them entertainingly and ably ... thoroughly enjoyable.' - Sunday Times 'In this scholarly and entertaining book, Rik Smits takes us on an impressive odyssey through the paradoxes and theories of left-handed lore.' - Mail on Sunday 'It is a lively read, and Smits, a linguist and science writer, shows his wide range of knowledge throughout ... The book is well arranged, with mainly short, crisp chapters. I thoroughly recommend it as a good overview of issues related to hand preference ... Everyone will find something thought-provoking, witty or just interesting, regardless of personal hand preference.' - Times Higher Education 'in his highly entertaining and erudite book, left-handed linguist and science journalist Rik Smits dispenses with the positive myths alongside the negative ones.' - The Dubliner