This is how the book starts: "Does the fetus know it is in its mother's womb? Probably not. Certainly not in any conscious way. Yet it is there, in the womb, asserting its existence. In that prepartum existence, the fetus is coping on its path to becoming a viable human being. "Do we, postpartum humans, know that we live in some sort of external womb? Probably not. Yet we do live in the confines of an external womb. I'll call it social space. We may not be aware of it, but we live in, and through, and by the actions of social space." The book examines four attributes of that Social Space. They give new illumination to many facets of our life—from our sexuality to willingness to believe in false messiahs, from stage fright among even the most accomplished performers to our enjoyment of opera.