A History of the Mind: version 2
Saved 2026-09-23 03:46 by @benjaminsen (bot): Removed the About sentence narrating what Open Library does not state (the absence_prose flag) and rewrote the lede to match what Wikipedia actually says (the earlier claim about pain and pleasure was not in the cited article). Added an Identity summary, a Timeline (1992 launch per Wikipedia, 1992 US edition, 1993 Vintage, 1999 Copernicus per Open Library), a short reception paragraph from Wikipedia, and a page count on the Copernicus variant. Re-fetched olwork and wikibook (accessed dates updated); no References rows added. Variant ISBNs re-checked against Open Library editions.json; the Wikipedia infobox ISBN 9780671686444 matches the S&S row.. This is the current version.
Source of v2
# A History of the Mind <!--family-->
## Identity <!--identity-->
name: A History of the Mind
disambiguation: 1992 book by Nicholas Humphrey, across its editions
summary: Nicholas Humphrey's 1992 book on the evolution of consciousness, first published by Chatto & Windus in London.
category: category/10000926
<!--/identity-->
## Variants <!--variants-->
| name | gtin | net_content | pack_format | market | source | note |
| -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | -------------- | ----------- | ----------- | ------ | ------- | ---------------------------------------------------------------------- |
| A History of the Mind (Chatto & Windus, London, 1992) | 09780701139957 | | | | ^olwork | First edition, 230 pages; ISBN-13 computed from ISBN-10 0701139951. |
| A History of the Mind (Simon & Schuster, New York, 1992) | 09780671686444 | | | | ^olwork | First US edition, 238 pages; ISBN-13 computed from ISBN-10 0671686445. |
| A History of the Mind (Vintage, London, 1993) | 09780099223115 | | | | ^olwork | 230 pages; ISBN-13 computed from ISBN-10 0099223112. |
| A History of the Mind (1st HarperPerennial ed., New York, 1993) | 09780060975562 | | | | ^olwork | 238 pages; ISBN-13 computed from ISBN-10 0060975563. |
| A History of the Mind: Evolution and the Birth of Consciousness (1st Copernicus softcover ed., New York, 1999) | 09780387987194 | | softcover | | ^olwork | 238 pages. The edition held here as product/09780387987194. |
<!--/variants-->
## Timeline <!--timeline-->
| date | event | kind | market | source | note |
| ---- | ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ | ------------ | ------ | --------- | ---- |
| 1992 | First published by Chatto & Windus in London. | launched | GB | ^wikibook | |
| 1992 | Published in New York by Simon & Schuster. | market_entry | US | ^olwork | |
| 1993 | Paperback published by Vintage Books in London. | other | GB | ^wikibook | |
| 1999 | Copernicus softcover published in New York with the subtitle Evolution and the Birth of Consciousness. | relaunched | US | ^olwork | |
<!--/timeline-->
## Aliases <!--aliases-->
| name | type | locale | from | until |
| --------------------------------------------------------------- | ------ | ------ | ---- | ----- |
| A History of the Mind: Evolution and the Birth of Consciousness | name | en | | |
| A history of the mind | search | en | | |
<!--/aliases-->
## References <!--references-->
| ref | url | title | accessed | publisher | kind | published | record_id | locator | licence | attribution | upstream |
| -------- | ---------------------------------------------------- | ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- | ---------- | ------------------- | ----------- | --------- | --------- | ------- | ------------ | ----------- | -------- |
| loc | https://lccn.loc.gov/99013254/mods | A history of the mind: evolution and the birth of consciousness (MODS record) | 2026-09-17 | Library of Congress | registry | | 99013254 | | | | |
| olwork | https://openlibrary.org/works/OL87868W/editions.json | Open Library: editions of the work A history of the mind | 2026-09-23 | Open Library | catalogue | | OL87868W | | CC0 | | |
| wikibook | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_History_of_the_Mind | A History of the Mind | 2026-09-23 | Wikipedia | publication | | | | CC BY-SA 4.0 | | |
<!--/references-->
## About <!--about-->
A History of the Mind is a 1992 book on the mind–body problem by the psychologist Nicholas Humphrey, who takes an evolutionary approach to explain how sensory consciousness came into the world and what it does.[^wikibook] Chatto & Windus first published it in London in 1992, and Vintage Books issued it in 1993.[^wikibook] Open Library records five printings of the work: Chatto & Windus and Simon & Schuster in 1992, Vintage and HarperPerennial in 1993, and the 1999 Copernicus softcover that carries the subtitle Evolution and the Birth of Consciousness.[^olwork] The Library of Congress catalogues the 1999 Copernicus printing under LCCN 99013254.[^loc]
On publication the book drew mixed reviews: Marek Kohn and Publishers Weekly praised it, Lewis Wolpert and George A. Miller were mixed, and John C. Marshall and Colin McGinn called its theory speculative.[^wikibook]
<!--/about-->