A Different Kind of Animal: How Culture Transformed Our Species

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How our ability to learn from each other has been the essential ingredient to our remarkable success as a species Human beings have evolved to become the most dominant species on Earth. This astonishing transformation is usually explained in terms of cognitive ability-people are just smarter than all the rest. But Robert Boyd argues that culture

Reviews

"In this lucid, well-argued treatise, anthropologist Robert Boyd avers that we are 'culture-saturated creatures', and that it is culturally transmitted knowledge that sets us apart and explains our dramatic range of behaviours, from rampant violence to great feats of cooperation."Barbara Kiser, Nature
"A Different Kind of Animal is a fascinating introduction to a fertile field of cultural research that should be better-known. Approachable and clearly argued, it is a brave revival of the autonomy of culture and a breath of fresh air for those tired of the narrow claims of evolutionary psychology."Cosmos
"Thought-provoking."Publishers Weekly

Author Bio

Robert Boyd is Origins Professor in the School of Human Evolution and Social Change at Arizona State University. His books include How Humans Evolved, Not by Genes Alone: How Culture Transformed Human Evolution, and The Origin and Evolution of Cultures.