Catching Fire

How Cooking Made Us Human

By: Richard Wrangham

Narrated by: Kevin Pariseau

Length: 6 hrs and 46 mins

Publisher's summary

Ever since Darwin and The Descent of Man, the existence of humans has been attributed to our intelligence and adaptability. But in Catching Fire, renowned primatologist Richard Wrangham presents a startling alternative: our evolutionary success is the result of cooking.

In a groundbreaking theory of our origins, Wrangham shows that the shift from raw to cooked foods was the key factor in human evolution. When our ancestors adapted to using fire, humanity began. Once our hominid ancestors began cooking their food, the human digestive tract shrank and the brain grew. Time once spent chewing tough raw food could be used instead to hunt and to tend camp. Cooking became the basis for pair bonding and marriage, created the household, and even led to a sexual division of labor.

Tracing the contemporary implications of our ancestors diets, Catching Fire sheds new light on how we came to be the social, intelligent, and sexual species we are today. A pathbreaking new theory of human evolution, Catching Fire will provoke controversy and fascinate anyone interested in our ancient origins - or in our modern eating habits.

©2009 Richard Wrangham (P)2009 Audible, Inc.

Critic reviews

• Top 10 Books of 2009 (Dwight Garner, The New York Times)

• Books of the Year 2009 (The Economist)

"[A] fascinating study...Wrangham's lucid, accessible treatise ranges across nutritional science, Paleontology and studies of ape behavior and hunter-gatherer societies; the result is a tour de force of natural history and a profound analysis of cooking's role in daily life." ( Publishers Weekly)

" Catching Fire is convincing in argument and impressive in its explanatory power. A rich and important book." (Michael Pollan, author of In Defense of Food and The Omnivore's Dilemma)

good and interesting.

a little repetitive at times, but worth a read. Short and interesting take on human history.

As fascinating as fire

Fascinating insight into humans evolutions connection to fire. I highly recommended it. It’s a great listen.

Interesting and well done

I recommend this book. It provided interesting information, which was presented well. Worth the credit!

Mind blowing information

I really struggled with this book at the beginning, but found myself increasingly interested in the contrasting view to widely heals beliefs about human species and societal development.

I found the performance lacking though and listened at 2X speed and still it felt slow.

Raw Foodists, Beware!

What did you love best about Catching Fire?

The science. Although I understood that most of this book is theory, I still understood the logic, research, and science behind it. I found it very interesting.

Any additional comments?

This book addressed and confronted raw foodists (cooked food is poison crowd) and went point by point why raw food as an exclusive diet (vegan or carnivorous) doesn't result in the best of health. It addressed why modern food processing methods are harmful, why raw food or other trendy/fad diets are harmful, and how cooked food made us what we are. Fascinating and compelling. Highly recommended.

wow this knowledge is beautiful

Expect this whole book to fascinate a curious mind. A regrettable point for this and other audiobooks is that chapters are not described in the player. This sad note is an issue with Audible rather than "Catching Fire." The audiobook could improve itself by making references accessible from the audiobook. This would be assisted with technology from Audible, too.

arc of evolution

Wrangham lays out a plausible arc of evolution that ends with mom cooking dinner. While I zoned out in the minutiae from time to time,it was interesting to learn how a wide range of animals search for, share or don't share and finally eat their food.

Intriguing

Wrangham presents a compelling, if not always well organized, argument for the importance of cooking in human evolution. Cooked food is easier to digest, allowing more nutrients to be abstracted more quickly. That allows humans to spend less energy digesting food, leading to a smaller digestive track, and more on a larger brain.

Wrangham also makes intriguing arguments both for the control of fire helping to lead to the loss of body hair and for cooking helping to lead to pair bonding. He asks the fascinating question whether cooking helped give rise to gender roles, but I found his argument incomplete. He ends with a somewhat preachy discussion of what the ease of digesting processed food means for today's couch potato society.

good book!

good info to understand how we need to eat healthy by learning the evolution of us

Well worth the listen

Well researched but makes a few conclusions that seem poorly supported by the facts as laid out. I think that this is reasonable as a form of hypothesis, however it is often presented as conclusion.

Example (paraphrased): Without cooking men would not have had enough time to hunt to an extent that they could have contributed significantly to gender based division of labor. I am not disagreeing, but there the idea is presented with a blizzard of facts that do little to support the conclusion.

Even so, there is a wealth of information here, and very interesting hypotheses presented.