The Secret of Our Success: How Culture Is Driving Human Evolution, Domesticating Our Species, and Making Us Smarter

"Book of the year 2015 on evolution" according to jukka aakula. 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 mark. "Solid book on how culture affected the evolution of human DNA" according to Tim Tyler. 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 stu. Peter McCluskey said The best book on human evolution. This book provides a clear explanation of how an ability to learn cultural knowledge made humans evolve into something unique over the past few million years. It's by far the best book I've read on human evolution.Before reading this book, I thought human uniqueness d

What has enabled us to dominate the globe, more than any other species, while remaining virtually helpless as lone individuals? This book shows that the secret of our success lies not in our innate intelligence, but in our collective brainson the ability of human groups to socially interconnect and learn from one another over generations.Drawing insights from lost European explorers, clever chimpanzees, mobile hunter-gatherers, neuroscientific findings, ancient bones, and the human genome, Joseph Henrich demonstrates how our collective brains have propelled our species' genetic evolut

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. Joseph Henrich wanted to upend this conventional narrative. 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, form

Joseph Henrich is professor of human evolutionary biology at Harvard University. He is the coauthor of Why Humans Cooperate and the coeditor of Experimenting with Social Norms. He also holds the Canada Research Chair in Culture, Cognition, and Coevolution at the University of British Columbia, where he is a professor in the departments of