What distinguishes men from animals? Language ? The reason ? Consciousness ? Creativity ? What if these were just decoys? And if the specificity of man was above all his incredible ability to imitate his fellows? We are, says Susan Blackmore, contagious mimetic machines. While genes use the human body in their fight for the supremacy of physical traits, memes colonize our brains to dominate our behaviors, our habits, our beliefs. But if altruism, faith, language, love, are ordered to us from outside, can we still say that the Self exists? A cult book that sets the international scientific world ablaze. An Oxford graduate, psychologist and consciousness scientist, Susan Blackmore teaches memetics at the University of Bristol, England.