Why did the ancient Chinese excel at algebra and arithmetic, but not geometry? Why do Western infants learn nouns before verbs, when it is the other way around in East Asia? From feng shui to metaphysics, a gulf separates the children of Aristotle from the descendants of Confucius, notes influential psychologist Richard Nisbett ("He basically gave me my view of the world," Malcolm Gladwell once proclaimed). Contrary to the idea that humans perceive the world in largely the same way, Nisbett demonstrates how Westerners think in terms of categories while East Asians tend to look for relations among objects and events, and he speculates on the implications of these cognitive differences for the future of international politics.