(Image: Portobello Books)
AT A time when youth culture is feared and demonised, here is a welcome antidote. As well as providing a highly readable account of the physical, emotional and mental changes that occur in the second decade of life, David Bainbridge argues that teenagers are the most impressive creatures on the planet. The evolution of adolescence, he contends, is what allowed the human brain to make its “great leap forward”.
Bainbridge’s thesis is thought-provoking, if not entirely convincing. Recent research leaves no doubt that the teenage years are special, but was the emergence of adolescence, between 800,000…
