Mother Nature by Sarah Blaffer Hrdy, Pantheon $35, Chatto and Windus, £20, ISBN 0701166258 Reviewed by David Concar
IN Mother Nature, Sarah Blaffer Hrdy, primatologist and professor at the University of California at Davis, courts controversy again by arguing, that humans have evolved as cooperative breeders who need help to rear children successfully. If bringing up kids without help from social networks is what biology intended for us, says Hrdy, natural selection would never have produced such slow-maturing infants. Full of insights and learning, Hrdy’s thesis is persuasive and rewarding.
