The Art Instinct by Denis Dutton will be published on January 1, 2009 in the United States and Canada by Bloomsbury Press.

The book will be published in Britain, Australia, New Zealand and the rest of the world on February 12, 2009 — the two-hundreth anniversary of the birth of Charles Darwin — by the Oxford University Press.

The cover image shown is the OUP cover. To see the US cover treatment, and the contrast between the two is significant and sums up neatly for me the difference between US and UK jacket treatments, and to read more about this new title link to
http://theartinstinct.com/

"Pugnacious, witty, and entertaining ... The Art Instinct is scintillatingly written and not to be missed – even the end notes are indispensable... Promises to instigate a lively conversation about the origins and meaning of art, not only among the author’s peers in academia, but also in the culture at large.”

Kirkus Reviews obviously likes The Art Instinct.

According to Wikipedia Denis Dutton is an academic, web entrepreneur and libertarian media commentator. He is an associate professor of philosophy at the University of Canterbury in Christchurch, New Zealand. He is also a co-founder and co-editor of the websites Arts & Letters Daily, ClimateDebateDaily.com and cybereditions.com.

Dutton hails from Los Angeles, California , was educated at the University of California Santa Barbara and taught at several US universities before emigrating to New Zealand: the University of Californi, Santa Barbara and the University of Michigan–Dearborn.

As of 2008 he is acting head of the Philosophy school at Canterbury