The Secret of Our Success, Joseph Henrich
The Secret of Our Success, Joseph Henrich
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The Secret of Our Success
How Culture Is Driving Human Evolution, Domesticating Our Species, and Making Us Smarter

Author: Joseph Henrich

Narrator: Jonathan Yen

Unabridged: 17 hr 15 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Publisher: Tantor Media

Published: 03/13/2018

Includes: Bonus Material Bonus Material Included

Synopsis

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.

About Joseph Henrich

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 coauthor of Why Humans Cooperate and coeditor of Experimenting with Social Norms.

Reviews

Goodreads review by Michal on June 28, 2016

The Secret of Our Success is one of these books that really shines light on the evolution of human species. Written by Joseph Henrich, Professor of Anthropology at Harvard, this book is one these few that really change how I see the world. An example of the book that had similar impact for me would......more

Goodreads review by Alex on December 23, 2016

A well-articulated case for gene-culture coevolution, and as good of an argument for culture driving genetic evolution as you are going to get. For starters Henrich’s book effectively debunks the once-orthodox and badly mistaken view (espoused by the likes of Stephen Jay Gould) that human biological......more

Goodreads review by Morgan on August 11, 2021

This is Joseph R. Henrich’s energetic, through and ultimately quite persuasive argument for culture gene coevolution. Henrich defines culture as 'socially transmitted (learned) behavior'. Understanding social learning as socially modeled memetic and behavioral replication, variation and adaptive con......more

Goodreads review by Andy on November 24, 2018

This is a good collection of factoids and anecdotes illustrating the point that human intelligence/behavior can be biological without being genetic. And that is important because it emphasizes the roles of the physical and social environments. Unfortunately, the book is put together like a course sy......more

Goodreads review by Jason on December 27, 2019

One of the most amazing books I've read in recent years, The Secret of Our Success has a single thesis that sounds obvious but then it shows you how different it is from what you might have thought before, how much it explains, and how we have learned all of this with a combination of genetics, soci......more

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