Ape Evolution

How the unique sleep habits of early humans fostered survival, innovation, and social evolution—and how this evolutionary legacy holds insights into how we sleep today. Despite sleep’s critical role in maintaining health and cognitive function, humans sleep less than any other primate. The...

A New York Times’s Notable Book of 2025 An impassioned celebration of humility before the living world that leads us to a new understanding of other species—and ourselves Darwin considered humans one part of the web of life, not the apex of a natural hierarchy. Yet today many maintain that...

The Ape That Understood the Universe is the story of the strangest animal in the world: the human animal. It opens with a question: How would an alien scientist view our species? What would it make of our sex differences, our sexual behavior, our child-rearing patterns, our moral codes, our religions, our languages, and science? The book tackles these issues by drawing on ideas from two major schools of thought: evolutionary psychology and cultural evolutionary theory.

Edward J. Larson is a Pulitzer Prize-winning author and eminent science historian. This marvelously readable, yet sumptuously erudite work traces the development of the scientific theory of evolution. From Darwin's essential trip to the Galápagos, to the most contemporary studies in sociobiology, this work takes listeners both into the field and laboratories of the world's greatest evolutionary scientists, and shows how the theory of evolution has itself evolved.

We have long attributed man's violent, aggressive, competitive nature to his animal ancestry. But what if we are just as given to cooperation, empathy, and morality by virtue of our genes? What if our behavior actually makes us apes? What kind of apes are we?

Terence McKenna Explained: Psychedelic Philosophy, The Archaic Revival, Timewave Theory, Ethnobotany, Shamanism, and the Evolution of Human Consciousness explores the life, ideas, and cultural influence of one of the most fascinating and controversial thinkers of the late twentieth century. Terence McKenna was a philosopher of consciousness, an ethnobotanist, a historian of psychedelic traditions, and a visionary cultural critic whose ideas challenged conventional views about the human mind, technology, and the future of civilization. This book provides a clear and accessible guide to ...

Strategy, Evolution, and War is a cautionary preview of how artificial intelligence (AI) will revolutionize strategy more than any development in the last 3,000 years of military history. Kenneth Payne describes strategy as an evolved package of conscious and unconscious behaviors with roots in our primate ancestry. Our minds were shaped by the need to think about warfare, a constant threat for early humans. As a result, we developed a sophisticated and strategic intelligence.

Darwin gathers his large ape family to tell them a tale, the ascent of man is retold once more in the eyes of the apes, he teaches them many tricks which they can use to outwit man and remove him from his current place of dominion, "they can't do anything without their witchcraft," he tells them, he even gives them secret plans to cause mayhem in the peoples households."

Eugene Marais spent three years living in the South African wilderness in close daily contact with a troop of baboons. He later described this as the happiest, most content time of his troubled life. This period produced two works which are testament to his research and conclusions; they have very different histories. Firstly, there was a series of articles written in Afrikaans for the newspaper Die Vaderland. They were then published in book form under the title Burgers van die Berge, and were first published in an English translation in 1939 under the title My Friends the Baboons. These ...

“A terrific book, witty and lucid, and brimming with provocative conjectures.” (Wall Street Journal) from the author of the acclaimed New York Times bestseller Genome Brilliantly written, The Red Queen compels us to rethink everything from the persistence of sexism to the endurance of...

Unlock the layers of the human psyche in a sanctuary where science meets the sublime. In a forgotten amphitheater, the enigmatic Alistair Thorne gathers a diverse crowd to dismantle everything they believe about reality. Through a series of provocative lectures, Thorne introduces "psyllosophy"—a daring synthesis of neuroscience and ancient mysticism that challenges the very foundations of modern thought. At the heart of the narrative are two unlikely companions: Anya Sharma, a brilliant neurobiologist grounded in empirical facts, and Mateo Rodriguez, an art history student searching for a...

Among all life on Earth, we alone experience rich moral emotions, follow complex rules governing how we treat one another, and engage in moral dialogue. But how did human morality evolve? And can humans become morally evolved? In A Better Ape, Victor Kumar and Richmond Campbell draw on the latest research in the biological and social sciences to explain the key role that morality has played in human evolution. 

How did humans, a species of self-centered apes, come to care about others? Since Darwin, scientists have tried to answer this question using evolutionary theory. In The Kindness of Strangers, psychologist Michael E. McCullough shows why they have failed and offers a new explanation instead. From the moment nomadic humans first settled down until the aftermath of the Second World War, our species has confronted repeated crises that we could only survive by changing our behavior.

When Bobbie and Grayson go on the hunt for the legendary Florida Skunk Ape, there’s more than one tangled mystery afoot. Grayson, the man Bobbie’s hung her life and career on, is every bit as evasive as the creature they’re tracking. At the start of their investigation, a colossally bad judgement call leaves Bobbie wondering just exactly who—or what—the elusive being is.

Dr. Anton Mason is a brilliant biologist and anthropologist who has a problem asserting himself and has never gotten his way in life. He develops a revolutionary anti-aging genetic formula that turns back the clock of evolution to a time when we were a less frail species. When the project is stolen from him, Anton decides to begin his own human trials, using himself as the test subject. The formula changes him. He begins to transform into something stronger. Something faster. Something primitive and primal. Something, other than human. Dr. Anton Mason is “The Mesomorph”. “The ...

While doing fieldwork on the remote Indonesian island of Flores, anthropologist Gregory Forth came across people talking about half-apelike, half-humanlike creatures that once lived in a cave on the slopes of a nearby volcano. Over the years he continued to record what locals had to say about these mystery hominoids while searching for ways to explain them as imaginary symbols of the wild or other cultural representations. We follow Forth on the trail of this mystery hominoid, and the space they occupy in islanders' culture as both natural creatures and as supernatural beings.

Are you ready to swing into the fascinating world of chimpanzees? 100 Fun Facts About Chimpanzees takes you on an unforgettable journey deep into the lush African rainforests where our closest animal relatives live, think, play, and thrive. From their incredible intelligence to their heartwarming family bonds, this book uncovers the amazing secrets of the great apes that share nearly 99% of our DNA. Whether you’re a curious kid, an animal-loving teen, a budding scientist, or simply fascinated by wildlife, this exciting book opens the door to one of nature’s most extraordinary species. ...

The Mind of the Market will change the way we think about the economics of everyday life. Drawing on research from neuroeconomics, Michael Shermer explores what brain scans reveal about bargaining, snap purchases, and how trust is established in business. Utilizing experiments in behavioral economics, Shermer shows why people hang on to losing stocks and failing companies, why business negotiations often disintegrate into emotional tit-for-tat disputes, and why money does not make us happy.

From the Sunday Times bestselling author of Elephant's on Acid comes a collection of the wackiest theories from science and history. What if we’re living inside a black hole? What if we’ve already found extraterrestrial life? What if the dinosaurs died in a nuclear war? What if Jesus Christ...

The Well-Dressed Ape, aka Homo sapiens, is a strange mammal. It thinks of itself as complex, intelligent, and in every way superior to other animals - but is it, really? With wit, humility, and penetrating insight, science journalist Hannah Holmes casts the inquisitive eye of a trained researcher and reporter on...herself. And not just on herself, but on our whole species - what Shakespeare called "the paragon of animals."