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Review
One of the boldest thinkers in her field, Hrdy believes that the ability to engage others in their care...is not an accident, but rather, the result of evolutionary imperatives. --Times Literary Supplement, 22 May 2009
"In Mothers and Others: The Evolutionary Origins of Mutual Understanding, Sarah Hrdy argues that what makes humans different from other apes is our need to rear children cooperatively. Elegantly written and, to any parent, compellingly argued."
--Irish Times, 28 November 2009
"In Mothers and Others: The Evolutionary Origins of Mutual Understanding, Sarah Hrdy argues that what makes humans different from other apes is our need to rear children cooperatively. Elegantly written and, to any parent, compellingly argued."
--Irish Times, 28 November 2009
Review
Her book is at once entertaining, full of apt, often colourful anecdotes, sometimes culled from her own experiences, and rich with information and case studies."
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
Format:Hardcover|Amazon Verified Purchase
This is a gem - especially the first half, using wideranging primate data to argue for the importance of coperative breeding in shaping human evolution. If you liked her previous book you will be sure to enjoy this one too!
Most Helpful Customer Reviews on Amazon.com (beta)
Amazon.com:
11 reviews
51 of 51 people found the following review helpful
Why us and not them?
13 May 2009
Format:Hardcover
This book should be read by anyone with an interest in human evolution but especially by those with an interest in human uniqueness. Dr. Hrdy writes beautifully, is vigorous in her attention to empirical evidence, but she is also willing to speculate about the conditions that fostered uniquely human traits. Among the most obvious of these traits are our extended lifespans, prolonged childhoods, big brains, perspective taking (mind reading) or intersubjectivity, language use, cumulative culture, mutual understanding, norm formation and enforcement, altruistic punishment, and moral judgment. The list could of course go on but what concerns Professor Hrdy more than these individual traits is describing the conditions or preconditions fostering these co-evolving traits. As she notes, the most common explanation for our pro-social traits is group competition but, as she argues, such competition is common among other primates, especially the Great Apes, and the question becomes "why us and not them?" She does not discount completely the role of group competition but argues that by far the most important reason that humans display their uniquely pro-social suite of traits is that "novel [child] rearing conditions among a line of early hominins meant that youngsters grew up depending on a wider range of caretakers than just their mothers, and this dependence produced selection pressures that favored individuals who were better able at decoding the mental states of others, and figuring out who would better help and who would hurt" (p 66).Hrdy argues that cooperation more than competition accounts for our unique traits, although the two are hardly incompatible.
Dr Hrdy speculates that within the genus Homo, Homo erectus may well have exhibited cooperative breeding--that is, groupmates or alloparents other than mothers tended to children, including nonkin--and that they may have been emotionally modern. By 1.8 million years ago Homo erectus was almost as large and as large brained as Homo sapiens, and, although male australopithecines were twice as large as females, males and females among Homo erectus were only slightly more dimorphic than Homo sapiens. Whatever the precise date for the emergence of cooperative breeding within our line, humans, unlike any of the Great Apes, have cooperative breeding and this fact Dr Hrdy maintains is the precondition that made the remarkable human suite of traits possible.
In these brief comments I have stressed the speculative features of Dr. Hrdy's argument because they are both the most novel and interesting elements. Let me stress in conclusion, however, that the author attends scrupulously to data and evidence, so even if one is less convinced than I am about the theoretical claims she makes, the book will instruct the reader on every page, especially if it is read slowly.
Brad Lowell Stone
Dr Hrdy speculates that within the genus Homo, Homo erectus may well have exhibited cooperative breeding--that is, groupmates or alloparents other than mothers tended to children, including nonkin--and that they may have been emotionally modern. By 1.8 million years ago Homo erectus was almost as large and as large brained as Homo sapiens, and, although male australopithecines were twice as large as females, males and females among Homo erectus were only slightly more dimorphic than Homo sapiens. Whatever the precise date for the emergence of cooperative breeding within our line, humans, unlike any of the Great Apes, have cooperative breeding and this fact Dr Hrdy maintains is the precondition that made the remarkable human suite of traits possible.
In these brief comments I have stressed the speculative features of Dr. Hrdy's argument because they are both the most novel and interesting elements. Let me stress in conclusion, however, that the author attends scrupulously to data and evidence, so even if one is less convinced than I am about the theoretical claims she makes, the book will instruct the reader on every page, especially if it is read slowly.
Brad Lowell Stone
19 of 21 people found the following review helpful
Mothers and Allo-others
25 April 2009
Format:Hardcover
Mothers and Others: The Evolutionary Origins of Mutual Understanding (Belknap Press) Hrdy's book is the most exciting and revolutionary book I have read on the subject of human evolution. Her main thesis is that prior to Homo erectus our ancestors developed a facility for infant and child care by many group members, allowing the mother to attend to other tasks and, over time, infants to evolve larger brains and childhood into a longer, richer learning period. This thesis is well backed by extensive studies regarding apes, primates, other mammals, and human hunting and gathering societies.
9 of 9 people found the following review helpful
important ideas
8 Sep 2009
Format:Hardcover
This is a very important piece of work that expands and clarifies Hrdys line of reasoning in her first book, Mother Nature. She presents such a huge amount of research into the socioemotional and evolutionary underpinnings of empathy and nurturing behavior that it is sometimes a little hard to view the forest behind all the trees. Although this is definitely not a book geared towards the novice it is well written and a must-read for everyone working in the field of anthropology. Btw, the photos are gems in their own right.
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