"In the childhood of every human being, and at the dawn of human history, there is an amazing - and until now unexplained - leap from simple, genetically programmed behavior to symbolic thinking, language, and culture. In The First Idea, Stanley Greenspan and Stuart Shanker explore this missing link and offer new insights into two longstanding questions: how human beings first created symbols and how these abilities initially evolved and were subsequently transmitted and transformed across generations over millions of years." Drawing on evidence - not only from their research and collaborations comparing the language and intelligence of human infants and apes, but also from the fossil record, neuroscience, and Greenspan's extensive work with children with autism - Greenspan and Shanker offer a radical new direction for evolutionary theory, developmental psychology, and philosophy.