In this startlingly original and persuasive book, Raymond Tallis shows that it is easy to underestimate the influence of small things in determining what manner of creatures humans are. He reveals that over time the repeated and multiple effects of the seemingly insignificant can make an enormous difference and argues that the independent movement of the human index finger is one such easily overlooked factor. Indeed, not for nothing is the index finger called 'the forefinger'. It is the one we most naturally deploy when we want to winkle things out of small spaces, but it plays a far more significant role in an action unique to us among primates: pointing.

Raymond Tallis was Professor of Geriatric Medicine at the University of Manchester until 2006. A poet, novelist and philosopher, he was listed by the
Economist in 2009 as one of twenty living polymaths, by the
Independent in 2007 as one of fifty 'Brains of Britain' and in 2005
Prospect magazine named him as one of Britain's leading Public Intellectuals.
The Raymond Tallis Reader was published in 2000,
Hippocratic Oaths in 2004 and
The Kingdom Of Infinite Space in 2008.