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Review
"Melvin Konner places childhood firmly within an evolutionary framework in his magisterial book. Synthesising decades of research across many disciplines, The Evolution of Childhood highlights evidence for interactions between genes and the environment...Konner is an excellent tour guide to the sacred lands of childhood. He has produced a scholarly, detailed and beautifully written study."
--Morten Kringelbach, Nature, 21 October 2010
"The book is breathtakingly ambitious...Konner is perhaps the only scholar who is as comfortable describing cultural change, or evolution in its broad quasi-philosophical outlines, as he is defining the complex biochemical and statistical correlates of behaviour. One of his writerly charms is that he's ever seer and scientist. He marvels as he describes."
--Michele Pridmore-Brown, Times Literary Supplement, 1 October 2010
--Morten Kringelbach, Nature, 21 October 2010
"The book is breathtakingly ambitious...Konner is perhaps the only scholar who is as comfortable describing cultural change, or evolution in its broad quasi-philosophical outlines, as he is defining the complex biochemical and statistical correlates of behaviour. One of his writerly charms is that he's ever seer and scientist. He marvels as he describes."
--Michele Pridmore-Brown, Times Literary Supplement, 1 October 2010
Product Description
This book is an intellectual tour de force: a comprehensive Darwinian interpretation of human development. Looking at the entire range of human evolutionary history, Melvin Konner tells the compelling and complex story of how cross-cultural and universal characteristics of our growth from infancy to adolescence became rooted in genetically inherited characteristics of the human brain. All study of our evolution starts with one simple truth: human beings take an extraordinarily long time to grow up. What does this extended period of dependency have to do with human brain growth and social interactions? And why is play a sign of cognitive complexity, and a spur for cultural evolution? As Konner explores these questions, and topics ranging from bipedal walking to incest taboos, he firmly lays the foundations of psychology in biology. As his book eloquently explains, human learning and the greatest human intellectual accomplishments are rooted in our inherited capacity for attachments to each other. In our love of those we learn from, we find our way as individuals and as a species. Never before has this intersection of the biology and psychology of childhood been so brilliantly described. 'Nothing in biology makes sense except in the light of evolution', wrote Dobzhansky. In this remarkable book, Melvin Konner shows that nothing in childhood makes sense except in the light of evolution.
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9 reviews
32 of 33 people found the following review helpful
Groundbreaking Standard Work
15 Jun 2010
Format:Hardcover|Amazon Verified Purchase
Melvin Konner's "The Evolution of Childhood" is a comprehensive research report in the field of evolutionary oriented developmental psychology, biology, anthropology and neurobiology. It is a groundbreaking book and will establish itself as a standard work. Clear, concise and exciting, even for non specialized readers (the reviewer is a German speaking psycholinguist and had his professional training in the sixties.) Thanks to its excellent apparatus, it provides insight into many areas, e.g. psycholinguistics, sexual development (including homosexuality), or the issues of adoption and many more.
20 of 21 people found the following review helpful
Worth the effort
16 Aug 2010
Format:Hardcover|Amazon Verified Purchase
Having no formal science background, this book was quite a challenge but well worth the effort. I've read many books on brain science, psychology and human development since my wife was pregnant with our first child. This is one of very few that has no ax to grind. It is a detailed accounting of the major research in human development which has left me humbled by the precariousness of human life and thankful for the luxury of raising children in the twenty first century. I highly recommend.
13 of 14 people found the following review helpful
The definitive work on infant and childhood development.
13 Aug 2010
Format:Hardcover
Emory professor/researcher Melvin Konner, who holds an M.D. and a Ph.D., took 30 years to prepare this comprehensive overview of infancy and childhood - and it shows. Extraordinarily thorough and engagingly written, The Evolution of Childhood is the definitive work on this critically important subject. It is sure to be an immensely useful resource for professionals as well as a fascinating read for the general public.
Jan Hunt, M.Sc., author of The Natural Child: Parenting from the Heart
Jan Hunt, M.Sc., author of The Natural Child: Parenting from the Heart
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