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Darwin's Unfinished Symphony

How Culture Made the Human Mind

Kevin N. Lala

$62.99

Hardback

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English
Princeton University Press
16 May 2017
How culture transformed human evolution Humans possess an extraordinary capacity for cultural production, from the arts and language to science and technology. How did the human mind--and the uniquely human ability to devise and transmit culture--evolve from its roots in animal behavior? Darwin's Unfinished Symphony presents a captivating new theory of human cognitive evolution. This compelling and accessible book reveals how culture is not just the magnificent end product of an evolutionary process that produced a species unlike all others--it is also the key driving force behind that process. Kevin Laland shows how the learned and socially transmitted activities of our ancestors shaped our intellects through accelerating cycles of evolutionary feedback. The truly unique characteristics of our species--such as our intelligence, language, teaching, and cooperation--are not adaptive responses to predators, disease, or other external conditions. Rather, humans are creatures of their own making. Drawing on his own groundbreaking research, and bringing it to life with vivid natural history, Laland explains how animals imitate, innovate, and have remarkable traditions of their own.

He traces our rise from scavenger apes in prehistory to modern humans able to design iPhones, dance the tango, and send astronauts into space. This book tells the story of the painstaking fieldwork, the key experiments, the false leads, and the stunning scientific breakthroughs that led to this new understanding of how culture transformed human evolution. It is the story of how Darwin's intellectual descendants picked up where he left off and took up the challenge of providing a scientific account of the evolution of the human mind.
By:  
Imprint:   Princeton University Press
Country of Publication:   United States
Dimensions:   Height: 235mm,  Width: 152mm,  Spine: 33mm
Weight:   765g
ISBN:   9780691151182
ISBN 10:   0691151180
Pages:   464
Publication Date:  
Audience:   College/higher education ,  Professional and scholarly ,  General/trade ,  Primary ,  Undergraduate
Format:   Hardback
Publisher's Status:   Active

Kevin N. Lala is professor of behavioral and evolutionary biology at the University of St Andrews. His books include Social Learning: An Introduction to Mechanisms, Methods, and Models and Niche Construction: The Neglected Process in Evolution (both Princeton).

Reviews for Darwin's Unfinished Symphony: How Culture Made the Human Mind

"""[Laland] describes a decade's worth of his and others' research, culminating in a comprehensive and fascinating solution to the vexing problem of the human mind.""--Publishers Weekly ""This well-researched book establishes how cognitive processes are essential for 'cumulative' learning, finding links 'between teaching, language, and cumulative culture.' After years of studying human culture and the human mind, Laland concludes that other evolutionarily advanced animals do not possess human attributes, as is often claimed.""--Choice ""[B]rilliant.""--Judy Siegel-Itzkovich, The Jerusalem Post ""As Laland reveals, human endeavour is a vast, cooperative effort that cannot be explained by natural selection alone... Our success, he argues, is not down to language, tool-use, empathy or any other single factor, but rather a 'whirlpool' of cultural and biological processes. In this book, he scours the animal kingdom for clues to why we are a species apart.""--Stuart Blackman, BBC Wildlife Magazine ""Kevin Laland's ambitious new book is, to my mind, the best account yet... A richly rewarding and powerfully argued book.""--Steven Rose, Times Higher Education"


  • Commended for Askblog's Books of the year 2017 2017
  • Short-listed for 2017 British Psychological Society Book Awards, Best Academic Monograph 2017
  • Short-listed for Forbes.com's 10 Best Biology Books of 2017, chosen by GrrlScientist 2017
  • Winner of Askblog's Books of the year 2017 2017
  • Winner of PROSE Award in Biological Science, Association of American Publishers 2018

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