A Story of Us: A New Look at Human Evolution

 

A Story of Us: A New Look at Human Evolution by Lesley Newson and Peter Richerson indeed do, as the subtitle suggests, takes a new look at the evolution of our species.  

They do this in two ways.  In the first, they take a mixed narrative and scientific approach to our ancestry.  They tell the ‘story’ of a particular hominid with little authorial commentary.  They want to give us a sense of what life was like for our ape-like ancestors as a pure story.  

In the second method, they take more of a scientific approach, but with a decidedly different approach than traditionally taken.  Rather than the strictly natural selection angle, the authors realize that our success as a species is because of our culture; and our culture developed along with us.  This culture stressed cooperation rather than competition (at least within a species or a group within that species).  From this angle, the story of females and their children is more important and is predominantly featured.  

The main title is clever as well: this is “a” story of us, not “the” story of us.  The authors do not believe there is something like human nature: there is nothing fixed about being human.  We are constantly evolving adapting, changing.  Therefore this is only one story of our origins but by no means the only story.