Humans are a puzzling species. On the one hand, we struggle to survive on our own in the wild, often failing to overcome even basic challenges, like obtaining food, building shelters, or avoiding predators. On the other hand, human groups have produced ingenious technologies, sophisticated languages, and complex institutions that have permitted us to successfully expand into a vast range of diverse environments. What has enabled us to dominate the globe, more than any other species, while remaining virtually helpless as lone individuals? This book shows that the secret of our success lies not in our innate intelligence, but in our collective brains--on the ability of human groups to socially interconnect and learn from one another over generations. Drawing insights from lost European explorers, clever chimpanzees, mobile hunter-gatherers, neuroscientific findings, ancient bones, and the human genome, Joseph Henrich demonstrates how our collective brains have propelled our species' genetic evolution and shaped our biology. Our early capacities for learning from others produced many cultural innovations, such as fire, cooking, water containers, plant knowledge, and projectile weapons, which in turn drove the expansion of our brains and altered our physiology, anatomy, and psychology in crucial ways. Later on, some collective brains generated and recombined powerful concepts, such as the lever, wheel, screw, and writing, while also creating the institutions that continue to alter our motivations and perceptions. Henrich shows how our genetics and biology are inextricably interwoven with cultural evolution, and how culture-gene interactions launched our species on an extraordinary evolutionary trajectory. Tracking clues from our ancient past to the present, The Secret of Our Success explores how the evolution of both our cultural and social natures produce a collective intelligence that explains both our species' immense success and the origins of human uniqueness.

About the Author
Joseph Henrich is professor of human evolutionary biology at Harvard University. He also holds the Canada Research Chair in Culture, Cognition, and Coevolution at the University of British Columbia, where he is a professor in the departments of psychology and economics. He is the coauthor of Why Humans Cooperate and the coeditor of Experimenting with Social Norms.

Reviews
"Limber and lucid."--Barbara Kiser, Nature "[A] pleasure for the biologically and scientifically inclined."--Kirkus "Henrich draws on his far-flung ethnographic field studies and the work of colleagues to illustrate the adaptive power of human culture."--The Scientist "Joseph Henrich ... offers a compelling and comprehensive answer in his exceptional new book The Secret of Our Success: How Culture is Driving Human Evolution, Domesticating Our Species, and Making Us Smarter. It is an intellectual tour-de-force that offers an overview for the field of cultural evolution."--Joe Brewer, This View of Life blog "A provocative alternative to the standard narrative about evolution... Henrich's book is immensely ambitious, informative, and important.--Glenn Altschuler, Psychology Today "Mind-stretching... Henrich's book will take you on a prodigious journey through human nature and society."--Alun Anderson, New Scientist "I thought I understood cultural evolution. But in his new book, The Secret of Our Success, Joseph Henrich schooled me. I felt like I learned more from his book than from the last dozen books I've read."--Robin Hanson, Overcoming Bias blog "Henrich posits a unique approach to understanding human behavior, not in purely evolutionary terms, but as a process of cultural evolution."--Library Journal "Human evolutionary biologist and psychologist, Joseph Henrich, a professor at both Harvard and the University of British Columbia has provided compelling insights into the ways that social, physical, scientific, agricultural, religious, and other human practices commonly termed 'culture' have honed man's skills and fostered survival strategies... The contents offer a very readable and riveting story of how culture--gene interaction must be examined when assaying human intelligence."--NSTA Recommends "A tour-de-force and a significant advancement of social science."--Darwinian Business "Culture sits upon a foundation of genetics and biology but is separate from it. Joseph Henrich wanted to upend this conventional narrative... The implications of this new, continuing narrative for the way we think about people, societies, and even companies are both subtle and significant."--David K. Hurst, Strategy + Business "This book synthesizes, in a format accessible to general readers, research from a variety of disciplines that address in varying ways, the evolutionary journey begun about 6 million years ago by our primate ancestors, forming humans in the process, into a unique species centered, according to Harvard evolutionary biologist Henrich, around social learning, cultural transmission, and cumulative culture."--Choice "A deep account of the relationship between culture and the human mind is now emerging, with The Secret of our Success by anthropologist Joseph Henrich blazing a trail in late 2015. Here Laland adds important layers to this new understanding."--New Scientist



Book Information
ISBN 9780691178431
Author Joseph Henrich
Format Paperback
Page Count 464
Imprint Princeton University Press
Publisher Princeton University Press
Weight(grams) 624g