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The Secret of Our Success: How Culture Is Driving Human Evolution, Domesticating Our Species, and Making Us Smarter Hardcover – 27 Oct 2015

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Joseph Henrich (Author)
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Product details

  • Hardcover: 464 pages
  • Publisher: Princeton University Press (27 Oct. 2015)
  • Language: English
  • ISBN-10: 0691166854
  • ISBN-13: 978-0691166858
  • Product Dimensions: 15.5 x 3.8 x 23.9 cm
  • Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
  • Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 179,522 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Review

"Limber and lucid."--Barbara Kiser, "Nature"

"Mind-stretching. . . . Henrich s book will take you on a prodigious journey through human nature and society."--Alun Anderson, "New Scientist""

""The Secret of Our Success" is a tour-de-force and a significant advancement of social science."--"Darwinian Business" blog

"In "The Secret of Our Success," Henrich . . . draws on the latest findings in anthropology, linguistics, behavioral economics and psychology, and evolutionary biology, to present a provocative alternative to the standard narrative about evolution. . . . Henrich's book is immensely ambitious, informative, and important."--Glenn Altschuler, "Psychology Today"

"Limber and lucid."--Barbara Kiser, Nature

"[A] pleasure for the biologically and scientifically inclined."--Kirkus

"Henrich draws on his far-flung ethnographic field studies and the work of colleagues to illustrate the adaptive power of human culture."--The Scientist

"Joseph Henrich . . . offers a compelling and comprehensive answer in his exceptional new book The Secret of Our Success: How Culture is Driving Human Evolution, Domesticating Our Species, and Making Us Smarter. It is an intellectual tour-de-force that offers an overview for the field of cultural evolution."--Joe Brewer, This View of Life blog

"In The Secret of Our Success, Henrich . . . draws on the latest findings in anthropology, linguistics, behavioral economics and psychology, and evolutionary biology, to present a provocative alternative to the standard narrative about evolution. . . . Henrich's book is immensely ambitious, informative, and important."--Glenn Altschuler, Psychology Today

"Mind-stretching. . . . Henrich's book will take you on a prodigious journey through human nature and society."--Alun Anderson, New Scientist

"I thought I understood cultural evolution. But in his new book, The Secret of Our Success, Joseph Henrich schooled me. I felt like I learned more from his book than from the last dozen books I've read."--Robin Hanson, Overcoming Bias blog

"Henrich posits a unique approach to understanding human behavior, not in purely evolutionary terms, but as a process of cultural evolution."--Library Journal

"Human evolutionary biologist and psychologist, Joseph Henrich, a professor at both Harvard and the University of British Columbia has provided compelling insights into the ways that social, physical, scientific, agricultural, religious, and other human practices commonly termed 'culture' have honed man's skills and fostered survival strategies. . . . The contents offer a very readable and riveting story of how culture--gene interaction must be examined when assaying human intelligence."--NSTA Recommends

"The Secret of Our Success is a tour-de-force and a significant advancement of social science."--Darwinian Business blog

"Culture sits upon a foundation of genetics and biology but is separate from it. Joseph Henrich wanted to upend this conventional narrative. . . . The implications of this new, continuing narrative for the way we think about people, societies, and even companies are both subtle and significant."--David K. Hurst, Strategy + Business

"This book synthesizes, in a format accessible to general readers, research from a variety of disciplines that address in varying ways, the evolutionary journey begun about 6 million years ago by our primate ancestors, forming humans in the process, into a unique species centered, according to Harvard evolutionary biologist Henrich, around social learning, cultural transmission, and cumulative culture."--Choice

From the Back Cover

"Social science is at the cusp of a revolution, incorporating a better understanding of how our capabilities and culture have evolved and how the interplay of social and political choices shape human experiences. Joseph Henrich has been at the forefront of this more holistic social science. In this wonderfully readable book, Henrich shows how our species is special and how our practices, beliefs, and instincts have emerged because of our cultural learning. This must-read book will be cherished and consulted for its ideas and insights." --Daron Acemoglu, coauthor of Why Nations Fail

"The cumulative, collaborative nature of human culture, far more than our individual intelligence, is what makes it--and us--special. How and when this collective brain emerged and evolved has until recently been only vaguely understood. Now Joseph Henrich brings a rich and deep rigor to the topic and tells the epic story in easy narrative style. This is a remarkable book."--Matt Ridley, author of The Rational Optimist and The Evolution of Everything

"In this accessible, authoritative book, Joseph Henrich explains why culture is essential for understanding human evolution. It is a must-read for anybody curious about why we are the way we are."--Robert Boyd, coauthor of How Humans Evolved and Not by Genes Alone

"Joseph Henrich has written a magnificent book. With verve and clarity he sets out a compelling theory of the interactions between genes and culture, and defends the theory with a remarkable range of evidence from fields as varied as history, primatology, neuroscience, and the science of sport. This book provides an enthralling account of the secret of our success." --Stephen Stich, Rutgers University

"Is the ability to acquire highly evolved culture systems like languages and technologies the secret of humans' success as a species? This book convinces us that the answer is emphatically 'yes.' Moving beyond the sterile nature-nurture debates of the past, Joseph Henrich demonstrates that culture--as much a part of our biology as our legs--is an evolutionary system that works by tinkering with our innate capacities over time."--Peter J. Richerson, University of California, Davis

"In the last decade, in the interstices between biology, anthropology, economics, and psychology, a remarkable new approach to explaining the development of human societies has emerged. It's the most important intellectual innovation on this topic since Douglass North's work on institutions in the 1970s and it will fundamentally shape research in social science in the next generation. This extraordinary book is the first comprehensive statement of this paradigm. You'll be overwhelmed by the breadth of evidence and the creativity of ideas. I was."--James Robinson, coauthor of Why Nations Fail

"With compelling chapter and verse and a very readable style, Joseph Henrich's book makes a powerful argument--in the course of the gene-culture coevolution that has made us different from other primates, culture, far from being the junior partner, has been the driving force. A terrific book that shifts the terms of the debate."-- Stephen Shennan, University College London

"A delightful and engaging expedition into and all around the many different processes of genetic and cultural evolution that have made humans such 'a puzzling primate.'"--Michael Tomasello, codirector of the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology

"Henrich is one of a small group of anthropologists who has revolutionized our thinking about evolution. His new book is a highly readable introduction to how our genes and cultural variants evolved together. This nuanced work offers the most comprehensive answer I know of to the question of how we became human. It tells the story of how culture, cultural learning, and cultural evolution made us so smart."--Jonathan Haidt, author of The Righteous Mind

"The Secret of Our Success provides a valuable new perspective on major issues in human evolution and behavior. Bringing together topics from such diverse areas as economics, psychology, neuroscience, and archaeology, this book will provoke vigorous debates and will be widely read."--Alex Mesoudi, author of Cultural Evolution

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4.0 out of 5 starsGood on the culture side of gene-culture coevolution
By Nigel Seel VINE VOICE on 4 May 2016
Format: Hardcover Verified Purchase
Luke tells us that "there is rejoicing in the presence of the angels of God over one repentant sinner."

There is similar rejoicing in heaven over anthropologists who embrace gene-culture coevolution. The late Henry Harpending was the paradigmatic example while Joseph Henrich, by contrast, has only made it part of the way.

That being said, the stellar reviews of "The Secret of our Success" correctly identify the good parts of Henrich's new book. We are cultural beings to the core and without the wisdom of our societies our big brains and high IQs are as nothing. Henrich's paradigmatic example is well described in this extract from a review by Joe Brewer:

"HMS Erebus and HMS Terror .. left port in June 1845 from the British Isles under the command of Sir John Franklin in search of a Northwest Passage that could energize trade by connecting western Europe to East Asia. They were outfitted with two field tested ice-breaker vessels equipped with state-of-the-art steam engines, retractable screw propellers, and detachable rudders. They also had five years of provisions and were prepared to deal with the harsh winter in the Arctic Ocean. And yet, even with all of these things going for them, the crew was forced to abandon ship in their second year and move onto King Williams Island—where they became fragmented into small groups and forced to the point of cannibalism before all dying eventually.

"The crew was in an area where Inuits had lived for thousands of years, some of whom came into contact with the shipwrecked crew during the time they were stranded there.Read more ›
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4.0 out of 5 starsWithout cultural knowledge humans would become extinct
By M. D. Holley TOP 1000 REVIEWER on 10 Jan. 2016
Format: Hardcover Verified Purchase
This is a very thought provoking and readable book. It makes some interesting observations which I haven't encountered before.

The main discovery for me was that the human body has developed genetically in such a way that it cannot survive without culturally transmitted knowledge. For example our mouths and digestive systems are not equipped to digest food without the help of fire. This has already been the case since a million years or more. But as Henrich points out, none of us know how to make fire. This made me feel that humanity is actually rather vulnerable.

There are some profound comments on tradition, divination and religion here too. Henrich has a different view of religion compared to someone like Richard Dawkins - he sees it as an inevitable part of culture.

The book complements some others I have read recently. For example Yuval Noah Harari's book 'Sapiens' talks about the human ability to believe in imaginary things, and Henrich now provides an explanation as to why this may be so. E O Wilson's books about eusocial behaviour in ant, bee, termite and human colonies finds its reflection here in the cooperative culture of humans.

I have just two small criticisms. After reading this book, I wonder whether the advent of the internet (a huge collective brain) may be one of the most important events in history - perhaps as big as the discovery of fire. Will it change humans genetically over time? I think Henrich could have commented more on this. The other negative is the writing style. It is relatively easy to read and free of jargon, but Henrich's written manner is really clumsy. He seems obsessively to target every infinitive and insists on splitting it, even where this makes the sentence really awkward.Read more ›
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5.0 out of 5 starsAmazing book.
By Francisco Brahm Morales on 27 Feb. 2016
Format: Hardcover Verified Purchase
An eyeopener and page turner. Amazing book.
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews on Amazon.com (beta)

Amazon.com: 4.6 out of 5 stars 23 reviews
20 of 20 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars Book of the year 2015 on evolution 22 Nov. 2015
By jukka aakula - Published on Amazon.com
Format: Kindle Edition Verified Purchase
Simple theories of humans and society are nice because they can be easily applied without such huge experience on different cultures or history. Modelling people as rational actors maximizing their utility functions quite well predicts the behaviour of peoples in markets. Such models give good guidelines to develop an efficient society based on free markets on the other hand and good basis for constructing right kind of incentives to people. E.g. taxing CO2 emissions to get people decrease their CO2 emissions. In same way the evolutionary psychology of seeing people and other animals as maximizers of their genetic fitness - or inclusive fitness - give a quite good understanding of the behaviour of humans.

But the simple models do not always work that well. Anthropologists doing field work have especially seen the power of culture and the high decree of differences between human cultures. Anthropologists have seen the huge role of culture specific social norms maintained by a) punishment of norm violators on the one hand and b) the internalization of norms at early age on the second hand. Co-operation is not only about kinship and reciprocity as the evolutionary psychology claims. Or not even about Folk Theorem and Equilibrium Selection as claimed by the game theorist.

This book develops the role of culture in human evolution. The story of humans is more complex than that of the universal human nature of neoclassical economy or evolutionary psychology. Culture is not anything which is just layered on top of our biological nature. Culture has an impact on genes. Cooking and stone tools for processing and hunting the food has had a huge impact on the genetic evolution of the human physiology - it had already an impact on the physiology of Homo Erectus. Most of the people already know how in some human populations, lactase persistence has recently evolved genetically as an adaptation to the consumption of nonhuman milk and dairy products beyond infancy. Culture has an impact on genes. But according to Henrich this is more of a rule than an exception.

Henrich also talks about self-domestication. The culture dependent social norms and the universal human way of punishing norm violators has made us to internalize the norms of our local culture at early age.

As Henrich shows humans are social learners i.e. imitators. Imitation is something which allows our culture to really build on the older knowledge. Cultural mutations happen and some of them enhance the effectiveness of the tribe. The selection happens not only between individuals based on their phenotype but also between tribes / communities based on their institutions or culture. We get cumulative cultural evolution instead of just individual learning. The Darwinian competition between individuals is enhanced by a competition between the groups who have adopted same culture and same tools and institutions.

We are a different animal. But we are not only smart chimpanzees but we are really ultrasocial smart animals who have developed cultural and biological mechanisms to extend our communities to people who we do not even know personally. We have extended our brains to communal brains knowing and learning much more than we can learn as individuals. We have developed institutions which allow us to trust other people to certain extent.

This is the book of year 2015 on evolution. I hope especially the people who have read the meme theory of Richard Dawkins Selfish Gene and who have thought that is the end of the story - to read this book.
5.0 out of 5 stars The Tao of Humanity 19 Jun. 2016
By Pete Johnson Jr - Published on Amazon.com
Format: Kindle Edition Verified Purchase
Every second provides an abundance of cultural opportunities to manifest better realities. Our cultural awareness and adroitness is key. Lets keep our culture uncontaminated, clean, pure, comprehensive, decolonized, local, positive valued (Equality, Diversity, Life Affirmation, Local Shared Abundance, etc.)! Our great human opportunity is to actualize self, families and friends, our enterprises, our communities, our environments, the planet! Abandon remote authority, as does all the rest of nature. All health and wealth begins locally somewhere. All of us can be more effective citizens and stewards locally and as United Communities of the World.
5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent 18 Jun. 2016
By Martin Palecek - Published on Amazon.com
Format: Kindle Edition Verified Purchase
This book is reviewing the idea of cultural evolution in an excellent way. It is both, theoretically and empirically very well built. I strongly recommend to read this book to everyone who is interested to the idea of culture coevolution.
5.0 out of 5 stars One of the best books on cultural evolution written so far. 23 Oct. 2016
By Patrik Lindenfors - Published on Amazon.com
Format: Hardcover Verified Purchase
One of the best books on cultural evolution written so far. It is both engaging and informative, and steers clear of simplifying the field or overstating the state of current research. Simply brilliant.
10 of 10 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars Solid book on how culture affected the evolution of human DNA 5 Mar. 2016
By Tim Tyler - Published on Amazon.com
Format: Hardcover Verified Purchase
It is curious that we have so many books about how culture influences DNA-based evolution and so few books about the evolution of culture. Joe Henrich's book is firmly in the former category. His book is all about the origin of human nature.

There are problems with studying the distant past: evidence is difficult to obtain; experiments are challenging to perform; and predictions are difficult to test. It would make sense for students of cultural evolution to look to modern cultural dynamics, which are not afflicted by these problems.

In fact, Joe doesn't discuss about cultural evolution very much. He doesn't provide an introduction to the topic or attempt to explain how it works. Instead he assumes a theory of cultural evolution and goes on to use it to analyze the evolution of the DNA genes of our ancestors.

Perhaps all the study of the influence of culture on DNA is a bias arising out of academic funding sources. Or maybe the researchers involved all copied each other. What risks getting lost here is the idea of culture as a largely independent system evolving along broadly Darwinian lines that operates on a different timescale to the evolution of DNA genes and proceeds largely independently from it. Ancient history is all very well, but there's also the modern world, technology, the internet and the future to think about.

Anyway, it's not entirely fair to criticize a book because of its chosen subject area. In fact, the book is vastly better than most books on the topic of human genetic evolution because Joe is using a sensible theoretical framework which includes cultural evolution. If I had to describe the book in one word, I would use the term "solid".

Joe argues for the importance of our collective brains, and against the significance of our individual brains. This is well-trodden territory by now, but Joe's book provides an excellent overview of this topic.

Joe has spent some of his life visiting the cultures he studies, and his book has many anecdotes from them. At the start I feared that the book was too anecdote heavy. For a scientists describing evidence as 'anecdotal' is a popular way of saying it is practically worthless. Fortunately, Joe goes beyond anecdotes frequently enough for me.

I was hoping to find material about the cultural brain hypothesis - which Joe publicly supported in 2012. This is the idea that was pioneered by Susan Blackmore, that culture drove the expansion of the human brain. However this idea got very little coverage in the book.

I was also expecting to find some support for and advocacy of group selection. The topic is rarely mentioned in the book. Joe does start out by saying that he is going to go beyond the kin selection and reciprocity explanations for cooperation championed by Dawkins and Pinker. He then spends some time in the book attempting to establish that groups of our ancestors regularly wiped each other out - but this seems obvious and uncontroversial to me. I was expecting some kind of case to be made for group selection, but I missed it.

Overall, I didn't find much to disagree with in the book. There were a few issues. For example, at one point, Joe proposes that millionaire generosity is performed so that others will copy them, and they will benefit from living in a more cooperative society. I'm pretty sure that this is mostly wrong. Virtue signaling explains such generosity. Millionaire generosity is largely performed out of reputational concerns - as proposed by Robin Dunbar in a paper titled "Showing off in humans: male generosity as a mating signal".

Joe argues that cumulative cultural evolution made our species special. This seems to be a fairly common position, but it ignores the fairly substantial scientific evidence that chimpanzees also have cumulative cultural evolution. The difference between our culture and theirs is not so much that ours accumulates and theirs does not, but that their cultural accumulations run into a low complexity ceiling.

I also worry about Joe over using the concept of a norm. There's more to cultural evolution than norms, and I'm concerned that constantly thinking in terms of evolving norms misses out the evolution of all the non-norms.

Another suspect section was titled 'move over natural selection'. Joe writes: "since the rise of cumulative cultural evolution natural selection has lost its status as the only "dumb" process capable of creating complex adaptations". I was left wondering whether Joe though cultural adaptations formed without selection, or whether he thought that such selection was not "natural".

In the end, I was left wondering about the author's position on many other points as well. Joe seems to have only covered the areas where the science was fairly settled. I would have liked to see more speculation and exploration of controversial issues. I guess then the book wouldn't have been so solid.
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