“Betzig has put together an exciting and
authentic picture of current evolutionary
studies of human behavior, and of both
their triumphs and pitfalls. Anyone with
any interest in Betzig’s big questions,
‘where we came from, why we’re here, and
who we are,’ ought to read this book. Its
organization and juxtaposed selections
make it thought-provoking in a way
reminiscent of the classic dialogues of
Socrates, Galileo, and Hume. It is an
ideal way to introduce students to recent
progress in the biology of human
behavior.”
—George Williams,
State University of New York
“The tabula of human nature was
never rasa and it is now being
read. The inscription found is no dogma or
world system and it bids to build no
empire whose later painful collapse will
sweep it away. Darwinist and
self-critical, data-based from pole to
tropic and from gamete to despot, the text
is the science of a young and growing
army. The book is their story and it shows
what we are universally like—and above
all, it explains why. Thirty years ago I
had no idea that a critique I had a hand
in could reach so far into the human
sphere and explain so much. To the
romantic that I was then, it’s depressing
that it can; to me now, on the whole, it’s
inspiring.”
—Bill Hamilton,
Oxford University
Human Reproductive
Behaviour: A Darwinian perspective
From the reviews:
"This may, with luck, be a pivotal book."
—Virginia
Maiorana, University of Chicago
"This volume shows how far sociobiology
has come, moving in about twenty years
from theory-building to hypothesis-testing
in human populations.…Given the data in
this volume, it becomes difficult to
dismiss sociobiology."
—Virginia
Avernethy, Vanderbilt
"Honest scientists must face their
critics and answer the sceptics. It is
therefore the responsibility of those who
endorse a biological or evolutionary
approach to human behavioral patterns to
support their argument; the burden of
proof always lies with new ideas,
theories, or frameworks. *Human
Reproductive Behavior* does just that. It
is a major step in substantiating an
evolutionary influence on human behavior."
—Meredith
Small, Cornell
Despotism and
Differential Reproduction: A Darwinian
View of History
From the inside flap:
“This book is an important exploration of
the biological meaning of injustice.
Confirming pessimists’ views of the
universal abuse of power for personal
ends, this work provides initial
verification for an explanation of that
abuse, beyond ‘human nature’ or economic
gain, as the consequence of Darwinian
competition for the increase of one’s
offspring and their descendants. In
demonstrating the power of this approach
against alternative explanations, Betzig
makes a significant contribution to the
emerging neo-Darwinian analysis of
large-scale, stratified societies.”
—Mildred
Dickemann, Sonoma State University
“Laura Betzig has written a pioneering
book, one of the first that applies modern
evolutionary theory from the science of
biology to the cross-cultural data form
human history. The topic, despotism, is
central: does power translate as
reproductive success in the social
environments of history? The answer is
yes, delivered in a spare but lively
journalistic style.”
—Richard Alexander,
University of Michigan
“A compelling and most
appropriate application of Darwinian
theory to an important question in the
history of political society. Dr. Betzig
has provided an important challenge in
this lucid, well-documented analysis of
the powerful. Her study shows how,
throughout human history, political status
has generally translated itself into
extraordinary reproductive success, and
the circumstances under which it changes
in the process of democratization.”
—Napoleon Chagnon,
University of California
Eusociality in History Human Nature: An Interdisciplinary
Biosocial Perspective
From the overview:
“From the beginning of human evolution to
the beginning of history, H. sapiens
has spanned the eusociality continuum. At
the low end of the continuum, we’ve been
cooperative breeders. Helpers have
included our sisters and brothers, who
occasionally put off starting their own
families in order to help their parents
reproduce. And at the high end of the
continuum, we’ve been eusocial, or “truly”
social. Sterile workers—from
postreproductive grandmothers in the first
foraging societies to castrated civil
servants in the first states—have fed and
defended other people’s daughters and
sons.”
Darwinian History Ethology and Sociobiology
From the introduction:
“People within and across societies often
respond to their environments adaptively.
They don’t always: there are some puzzles.
But, to me, sex and marriage in ancient
Rome, nepotism in medieval nunneries, wet
nursing and other kinds of “delegated
mothering” across European history, family
planning in early modern Sweden and
Norway, inheritance in Sacramento, and
men’s tastes for thin American women, are
all in some ways better understood as
individuals’ means to reproductive ends.”
Human History as Natural
History Evolutionary Psychology
From the table of contents:
A Note on Religion, by Laura
Betzig
Fitness and Power: The contribution of
Genetics to the History of Differential
Reproduction, by Walter Scheidel,
Stanford
Evolutionary History, by Ian
Morris, Stanford
Is History the Same as
Evolution? No. Is it
Independent of Evolution?
Certainly Not, by Mel Konner, Emory
Tempo and Mode in Cultural
Macroevolution, by Peter Turchin and
Sergey Gavrilets, Connecticut
