The Soul cover art

The Soul

A History of the Human Mind

 Preview
Try Standard free
Select 1 audiobook a month from our entire collection.
Listen to your selected audiobooks as long as you're a member.
Get unlimited access to bingeable podcasts.
Auto-renews at $8.99/mo after 30 days. Cancel anytime.

The Soul

By: Paul Ham
Narrated by: Lewis Fitz-Gerald
Try Standard free

Auto-renews at $8.99/mo after 30 days. Cancel anytime.

Buy Now for $31.89

Buy Now for $31.89

About this listen

 Everyone thinks they have one, but nobody knows what it is.

For thousands of years the soul was an 'organ', an entity, something that was part of all of us, that survived the death of the body and ventured to the underworld, or to heaven or hell.

The soul could be saved, condemned, tortured, bought.

And then, mysteriously, the 'soul' disappeared. The Enlightenment called it the 'Mind'. And today, neuroscientists demonstrate that the mind is the creation of the brain.

The 'religious soul' lives on, in the minds of the faithful, while the secular 'soul' means whatever you want it to mean.

In The Soul: A History of the Human Mind critically acclaimed historian Paul Ham embarks on a journey that has never been attempted: to restore the idea of the soul to the human story and to show how belief in, and beliefs arising from, the soul/mind are the engines of human history.

The Soul tells the story of the inner 'I', the strange essence of ourselves, and how it has been animated, immortalized, loved, armed, inflamed, enslaved, illuminated and enlightened over 250,000 years: from the dawn of self-consciousness among the earliest Sapiens to the ancient Hindu and Egyptian ideas of immortality and rebirth; from the Jewish self-conception of the 'Chosen' to the Ancient Chinese and Greek theories of soul; from the rise of the Christian spirit that broke the Roman Empire to the Islamic conquests and crusading Christians; from the divided souls of the Reformation to the 'rational' soul/mind of the Enlightenment; from the missionary spirit that harvested souls for western empires to the earliest recognition of the souls/minds of women.

We enter the dark night of the soul under totalitarian rule; contemplate the harrowing and fragmentation of the modern mind; and glimpse the rise of the synthetic spirit of artificial intelligence.

The Soul is much more than a mesmerizing narrative and uniquely accessible way of explaining the human story. It transforms our understanding of how history works. It persuasively demonstrates that the beliefs of the soul/mind are the engines of human history.©2024 Paul Ham (P)2024 Penguin Random House Australia Audio Anthropology Consciousness & Thought History Philosophy Middle East Middle Ages Ancient History Mormon
All stars
Most relevant
I wasn’t quite sure what to expect of a book entitled the soul - perhaps a survey of historical perspectives on what the soul is or could be. While that expectation has indeed been met, the book is really so much more than that - a thoroughly engaging evaluation of human consciousness through history, and the ways ideas about the soul have led to both enlightenment and bloodshed. The profound conclusion left me with an odd sense of both hope and dread, somewhat reconciled by a fragile hopefulness.

Brilliant and so engaging

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
At 38 hours, this book is daunting in its size and topic.
I highly recommend it to any one of a curious nature. The story is ours in all its multicoloured glory and disgust.

A mighty tome, a fascinating story

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
Many a times did I argue with Ham - sometimes out loud, which made me look like a raving madman in the dog park. His analysis of Marx , Marxism and feminism I found lacking. The relentless equation of Fascism and existing socialism is a bit Ham fisted (excuse the pun). While there are definitely many similarities, a bit more nuanced treatment of the differences from the perspective of the individual soul would have benefited the chapter. The chapter on women’s right was brilliant but the slightly condescending and almost hostile attitude to contemporary feminism was disturbing both in language and content which felt like it could only have been with by a middle aged white man, The limited criticism and analysis of the US was very strange. No mention of Hollywood and its effect on the soul, no mention of the insidious US tech giants and their nefarious effects and influence while excoriating- quite rightly - the Chinese and Russian technocracy. Overall, it’s a great listen and lots of food for thought.

Great food for thought - or the soul as they seem to be interchangeable

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
Magnificent history of the allowed and pursued human thought that was cultivated and recorded in our written history. Introduction to different philosophical schools and how the effects of their teachings echo for eternity. though author managed to stay unbiased most of the almost 40 hour audiobook, in the last hour he unveils his utmost blinded woke side and leftist political leanings, the book would have been perfect without that personal nonsense. Highly recommended reading to all curious minds.

Masterpiece of the history of human thinking throughout the ages.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
a wonderful historian, a concise history of humanities relationships with their gods and search for the meaning of the Soul

breath taking

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
See more reviews
In the spirit of reconciliation, Audible acknowledges the Traditional Custodians of country throughout Australia and their connections to land, sea and community. We pay our respect to their elders past and present and extend that respect to all Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples today.