这是一本关于心脏 的自然史。作者从各种动物的心脏入手，讲述了它在漫长生命史上的进化历程，在清晰展现心脏作用的同时，幽默地穿插了引人入胜的奇趣故事和生物学知识。
从古至今，从自然到人类社会，从情感寄托到科学研究，人类对心脏的认识随着技术的发展不断深入，谬误和认知误区也伴随着重要的科学发现产生。为什么长期以来人们都认为心脏是灵魂、爱及其他情感的源泉？它有什么特别的地方？这本书从动物学、进化生物学以及再生医学等前沿技术的角度探讨这一问题，帮助我们重新理解心脏在生命进化和人类社会中所起到的作用，从而对这种动物和人体中的重要器官有一个全新的、深入的认识。
正如作者所说，心脏不只是一种驱动身体中血液循环的泵，它是疯狂的引擎，也是人类文化和人性的核心。
A journey into the heartbeat of life on Earth.
Millennia ago, when we first began puzzling over the mysteries of the human body, one organ stood out as vital. The heart was warm, it was central, and it moved as it pumped blood. The ancient Egyptians treated it with reverence, mummifying it separately from the body so that the soul inside it could be weighed. Aristotle believed that it was the seat of consciousness. Over the centuries, science has dispelled the myths, but our fascination with the heart has endured.
From the origins of circulation, still evident in some microorganisms today, to the enormous hearts of blue whales, we journey with Bill to beaches where horseshoe crabs are being harvested for their life-saving blood, and under the sea to learn about the world’s most natural antifreeze, flowing through the veins of icefish. And we follow him through human history, too, as scientists hypothesize wrongly and rightly about what is arguably our most important organ, ultimately developing the technologies that have helped us study the heart—and now, in the most cutting-edge labs, the tools that will help us regenerate it.
Deeply researched and engagingly told, Pump is a fascinating natural history sure to be loved by readers of Mary Roach and Bill Bryson.
