100 books like The Descent Of Man

By Charles Darwin,

Here are 100 books that The Descent Of Man fans have personally recommended if you like The Descent Of Man. Shepherd is a community of 11,000+ authors and super readers sharing their favorite books with the world.

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Book cover of The Time Machine

Philippa M. Steele Author Of Exploring Writing Systems and Practices in the Bronze Age Aegean

From my list on highlighting the fragility of human culture.

Why am I passionate about this?

I’m a professor at Cambridge University, and following years of training in ancient languages and linguistics, I am currently running a research project on the visual aspects of writing systems. Recently, I’ve become passionate about using research on ancient languages and writing to try to help communities today who are in danger of losing their linguistic traditions (I've started an Endangered Writing Network)–which is why the fragility of human culture is high on my agenda. Ultimately, I’d like the world to be a better place for my baby son to grow up in, and I hope to use my academic work to help people in some small way.

Philippa's book list on highlighting the fragility of human culture

Philippa M. Steele Why did Philippa love this book?

For me, this is the ultimate science fiction story: the Victorian inventor whose contraption works so well that he can travel to witness the end of human society. I first saw the film, with the wonderful Rod Taylor, then loved the book—what a story!

The Morlocks terrified me as a child, but as I grew older, I realized there is much more complexity to these apparent antagonists. Who should we sympathize with more, the Eloi who have forgotten all human knowledge and leave their books crumbling as they frolic mindlessly, with no sense of social responsibility, or the resourceful Morlocks who have no choice but to live their lives in the shadows?

The hero’s devastation is palpable when he learns where mankind’s journey ultimately leads.

By H.G. Wells,

Why should I read it?

15 authors picked The Time Machine as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it. This book is for kids age 8, 9, and 10.

What is this book about?

A brilliant scientist constructs a machine, which, with the pull of a lever, propels him to the year AD 802,701.

Part of the Macmillan Collector's Library; a series of stunning, clothbound, pocket-sized classics with gold foiled edges and ribbon markers. These beautiful books make perfect gifts or a treat for any book lover. This edition of The Time Machine features an introduction by Dr Mark Bould.

The Time Traveller finds himself in a verdant, seemingly idyllic landscape where he is greeted by the diminutive Eloi people. The Eloi are beautiful but weak and indolent, and the explorer is perplexed by…


Book cover of Lucy: The Beginnings of Humankind

Michael Ruse Author Of A Philosopher Looks at Human Beings

From my list on human evolution and the human story.

Why am I passionate about this?

Our discovery that we are modified monkeys rather than modified mud is a human achievement on a par with a Mozart opera or a Vermeer painting. As a historian and philosopher of science, my lifelong mission has been to see how this knowledge transcends earlier myths about divine creation and opens the way to a far richer and more optimistic vision of human nature, our achievements, and our future possibilities. New knowledge can be terrifying. It can also be exciting and liberating. It is an obligation, a privilege, and a joy to be able to express our full humanity. The authors I shall introduce exemplify this so very much.

Michael's book list on human evolution and the human story

Michael Ruse Why did Michael love this book?

If you can read only one book on human evolution, this is it. “Lucy,” a fossil Australopithecus afarensis, discovered in Ethiopia in 1974, is the proverbial “missing link.” About three million years old, she had a chimpanzee-size brain, about 400cc (as opposed to modern humans, about 1200cc), and yet walked upright. Told by Don Johanson, one of the team who discovered her, and science writer Martin Edey, the book is informative, serious, and yet at the same time written with a light touch that makes the tale akin to a thriller like Stephen King. It is a thriller. Our great great grandma was not Eve, eating illicit apples, but a modified monkey roaming the plains of Africa.

By Donald Johanson, Maitland Edey,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Lucy as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

“A glorious success…The science manages to be as exciting and spellbinding as the juiciest gossip” (San Franscisco Chronicle) in the story of the discovery of “Lucy”—the oldest, best-preserved skeleton of any erect-walking human ancestor ever found.

When Donald Johanson found a partical skeleton, approximately 3.5 million years old, in a remote region of Ethiopia in 1974, a headline-making controversy was launched that continues on today. Bursting with all the suspense and intrigue of a fast paced adventure novel, here is Johanson’s lively account of the extraordinary discovery of “Lucy.” By expounding the controversial change Lucy makes in our view of…


Book cover of Who We Are and How We Got Here: Ancient DNA and the New Science of the Human Past

Michael Muthukrishna Author Of A Theory of Everyone: The New Science of Who We Are, How We Got Here, and Where We're Going

From my list on changing how you see the world.

Why am I passionate about this?

I’m a professor of economic psychology at the London School of Economics with affiliations in developmental economics and data science. Before that, I was at Harvard in Human Evolutionary Biology. During my PhD, I took graduate courses in psychology, economics, evolutionary biology, and statistics. I have undergraduate degrees in engineering and in psychology and took courses in everything from economics and biology to philosophy and political science. As a child, I witnessed the civil war in Sri Lanka; a violent coup in Papua New Guinea; the end of apartheid in South Africa, living in neighboring Botswana; and London’s 7/7 bomb attacks. I’ve also lived in Australia, Canada, USA, and UK.

Michael's book list on changing how you see the world

Michael Muthukrishna Why did Michael love this book?

The new science of DNA reveals a lot about how we think about identity.

Humans are a migratory species and our stories are complicated. Ancient DNA don't always match people's stories about their ancestors. Rather than being in a place for thousands of years, sometimes we replaced those who were there before or only the males of the group.

Sometimes we completely replaced the group that was there before but the original group's culture persisted or even replaced the invading culture. The book complicates our understanding of indigeneity and belonging.

By David Reich,

Why should I read it?

4 authors picked Who We Are and How We Got Here as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

The past few years have witnessed a revolution in our ability to obtain DNA from ancient humans. This important new data has added to our knowledge from archaeology and anthropology, helped resolve long-existing controversies, challenged long-held views, and thrown up remarkable surprises.

The emerging picture is one of many waves of ancient human migrations, so that all populations living today are mixes of ancient ones, and often carry a genetic component from archaic humans. David Reich, whose team has been at the forefront of these discoveries, explains what genetics is telling us about ourselves and our complex and often surprising…


Book cover of War, Peace, and Human Nature: The Convergence of Evolutionary and Cultural Views

Michael Ruse Author Of A Philosopher Looks at Human Beings

From my list on human evolution and the human story.

Why am I passionate about this?

Our discovery that we are modified monkeys rather than modified mud is a human achievement on a par with a Mozart opera or a Vermeer painting. As a historian and philosopher of science, my lifelong mission has been to see how this knowledge transcends earlier myths about divine creation and opens the way to a far richer and more optimistic vision of human nature, our achievements, and our future possibilities. New knowledge can be terrifying. It can also be exciting and liberating. It is an obligation, a privilege, and a joy to be able to express our full humanity. The authors I shall introduce exemplify this so very much.

Michael's book list on human evolution and the human story

Michael Ruse Why did Michael love this book?

From anthropology and archeology, Douglas Fry and his co-contributors tell us that our ancestors were hunter-gatherers, in small bands, on a five-million-year camping trip around the globe. We had to have adaptations for harmonious communal living. Wary of strangers, we would realize that wanting to fight them was stupid. Man the “killer ape” is fiction. Then, 10,000 years ago, came agriculture, with a population explosion producing abundant goods that others would covet. The consequence was war and prejudice and other vile beliefs and behaviors. Ex-Quaker as I am, I have written a book, Why We Hate: The Roots of Human Conflict, appearing in Spring 2021, arguing that, by making the appropriate cultural moves, we can again attain our natural state of cooperation and peaceful living.

By Douglas P. Fry,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked War, Peace, and Human Nature as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Have humans always waged war? Is warring an ancient evolutionary adaptation or a relatively recent behavior-and what does that tell us about human nature? In War, Peace, and Human Nature, editor Douglas P. Fry brings together leading experts in such fields as evolutionary biology, archaeology, anthropology, and primatology to answer fundamental questions about peace, conflict, and human nature in an evolutionary context. The chapters in this book
demonstrate that humans clearly have the capacity to make war, but since war is absent in some cultures, it cannot be viewed as a human universal. And counter to frequent presumption the actual…


Book cover of Beyond War: The Human Potential for Peace

Michael Ruse Author Of Why We Hate: Understanding the Roots of Human Conflict

From my list on why such nice people as we are so nasty.

Why am I passionate about this?

I was raised a Quaker in England in the years after the Second World War. Quakers don’t have creeds, but they have strong beliefs about such things as the immorality of war. In the 1950s there was also huge prejudice, particularly against homosexuality which was then illegal. Issues like these gnawed at me throughout my 55-year career as a philosophy professor. Now 82 and finally retired, I'm turning against the problems of war and prejudice, applying much that I've learnt in my career as a philosopher interested in evolutionary theory, most particularly Charles Darwin. For this reason, intentionally, Why We Hate: Understanding the Roots of Human Conflict is aimed at the general reader.  

Michael's book list on why such nice people as we are so nasty

Michael Ruse Why did Michael love this book?

Douglas Fry is a paleoanthropologist who shows unambiguously that war is a modern human invention.  Before the advent of agriculture there was no war. There was often violence – bumping off a resource-draining grandmother – but no systematic fighting and killing. With agriculture came an exploding population, nowhere to flee and hide, and fixed assets that you just couldn’t pick up and leave. But as starting war is a function of culture, so ending war is a function of culture. The United Nations is not perfect, but it has been hugely important in reducing conflict.  

By Douglas P. Fry,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Beyond War as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

A profoundly heartening view of human nature, Beyond War offers a hopeful prognosis for a future without war. Douglas P. Fry convincingly argues that our ancient ancestors were not innately warlike-and neither are we. He points out that, for perhaps ninety-nine percent of our history, for well over a million years, humans lived in nomadic hunter-and-gatherer groups, egalitarian bands where warfare was a rarity. Drawing on archaeology and fascinating recent
fieldwork on hunter-gatherer bands from around the world, Fry debunks the idea that war is ancient and inevitable. For instance, among Aboriginal Australians, warfare was an extreme anomaly. Fry also…


Book cover of Little Dorrit

Bill Nash Author Of Secret London: An Unusual Guide

From my list on a deeper look at London.

Why am I passionate about this?

I’ve been obsessed with London since childhood. The English side of my family lived and worked throughout the city, and a day out with my father walking its streets was my greatest treat. He was a doctor, so a London trip could involve shopping for medical equipment, trawling bookshops, an afternoon at his tailor, or pub crawls where he seemed to know everyone. I’ve always been aware of the eccentricity of the place, which still thrills me. I really struggled to choose these books because there’s just so much material that I had to leave out. But I hope what I’ve chosen might be of interest. 

Bill's book list on a deeper look at London

Bill Nash Why did Bill love this book?

I know Dickens is an obvious choice, but he’s so good, and there’s so much to choose from, from legal London in Bleak House to the Thames scavengers at the start of Our Mutual Friend. But if you’re going to choose one–and you really should–take Little Dorrit.

First, the story is great all the way through, from the opening in Marseilles to the cataclysmic downfall of the House of Clennam. It’s strongly moral, with Dickens’ ironbound support for the underdog and his ever-present ability to make the reader seethe at injustice (I struggled to finish Martin Chuzzlewit, for example, because Seth Pecksniff made my blood boil so hard) and has less of the sugary sentiment that pollutes a lot of his other books.

It’s funny, moving, and for a modern-day Londoner, it's interesting because so much of the landscape remains in place; you can still visit Bleeding Heart…

By Charles Dickens,

Why should I read it?

2 authors picked Little Dorrit as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it. This book is for kids age 7, 8, 9, and 10.

What is this book about?

For all of her twenty-two years, Amy Dorrit has lived in Marshalsea prison, trapped there with her family because of her father's debts. Her only escape is to work as a seamstress for the kind Mrs Clennam. When Mrs Clennam's son Arthur returns to England after many years abroad, he takes a kind-hearted interest in poor little Amy. But when it is unexpectedly discovered that her father is heir to a fortune, some shocking truths emerge and Amy's life changes for ever.


Book cover of The War That Ended Peace: The Road to 1914

Michael Ruse Author Of Why We Hate: Understanding the Roots of Human Conflict

From my list on why such nice people as we are so nasty.

Why am I passionate about this?

I was raised a Quaker in England in the years after the Second World War. Quakers don’t have creeds, but they have strong beliefs about such things as the immorality of war. In the 1950s there was also huge prejudice, particularly against homosexuality which was then illegal. Issues like these gnawed at me throughout my 55-year career as a philosophy professor. Now 82 and finally retired, I'm turning against the problems of war and prejudice, applying much that I've learnt in my career as a philosopher interested in evolutionary theory, most particularly Charles Darwin. For this reason, intentionally, Why We Hate: Understanding the Roots of Human Conflict is aimed at the general reader.  

Michael's book list on why such nice people as we are so nasty

Michael Ruse Why did Michael love this book?

If we are not killer apes, if war is not inevitable, how does it happen? Obviously because people were not up to the challenges of maintaining peace. Margaret MacMillan’s riveting account of the events leading up to the Great War, the First World War, shows in all-too-clear detail how not to go about avoiding war. The German Kaiser, Wilhelm, was petty and boastful and altogether too proud and confident of his totally inadequate abilities. The Tsar of Russia, Nicholas, was cut from the same cloth. But whereas Wilhelm made up his mind quickly and then was unmovable, Nicholas could never make up his mind. Between them, helped by other inadequates in places of high status and power, millions of young men lay dead on the fields of Flanders, in Northern France.

By Margaret MacMillan,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked The War That Ended Peace as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

WINNER of the International Affairs Book of the Year at the Political Book Awards 2014Longlisted for the Samuel Johnson Prize 2013
The First World War followed a period of sustained peace in Europe during which people talked with confidence of prosperity, progress and hope. But in 1914, Europe walked into a catastrophic conflict which killed millions of its men, bled its economies dry, shook empires and societies to pieces, and fatally undermined Europe's dominance of the world. It was a war which could have been avoided up to the last moment-so why did it happen?
Beginning in the early nineteenth…


Book cover of Brexitland

Peter Foster Author Of What Went Wrong With Brexit: And What We Can Do About It

From my list on Britain after Brexit.

Why am I passionate about this?

I am a journalist who spent 15 years reporting from all over the world – Kabul, Baghdad, New Delhi, Beijing, Washington D.C. – returning to London in 2015 to report on the UK’s relations with Europe. Then Brexit happened. As a reporter, I’d chronicled the rise of China and India after 9/11 and the 2008 financial crisis, but I’d failed to understand how far Britain had been consumed by the forces of populism that have roiled all Western democracies. I’ve spent the last eight years reporting on the fallout, from both sides of the English Channel; trying to unpack what went wrong, and see what we can do about it.

Peter's book list on Britain after Brexit

Peter Foster Why did Peter love this book?

This book by Maria Sobolewska and Rob Ford – two political scientists at Manchester University – is superlative at unpacking the underlying political currents that fuelled the Brexit vote of 2016.

Of course there were lots of immediate factors that led to the vote to leave, but this book puts the underlying Brexit culture war in its historical context, mixing data and polling insights with forensic analysis.

What you start to see is that the decision of both Tory and Labour politicians to weaponise both EU membership and immigration slowly laid the foundations for Brexit to become the lightning rod issue that has set UK politics on fire these last seven years.

By Maria Sobolewska, Robert Ford,

Why should I read it?

2 authors picked Brexitland as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Long-term social and demographic changes - and the conflicts they create - continue to transform British politics. In this accessible and authoritative book Sobolewska and Ford show how deep the roots of this polarisation and volatility run, drawing out decades of educational expansion and rising ethnic diversity as key drivers in the emergence of new divides within the British electorate over immigration, identity and diversity. They argue that choices made by political parties from the New Labour era onwards have mobilised these divisions into politics, first through conflicts over immigration, then through conflicts over the European Union, culminating in the…


Book cover of Darwin's Dogs: How Darwin's Pets Helped Form a World-Changing Theory of Evolution

Clive D.L. Wynne Author Of Dog Is Love: Why and How Your Dog Loves You

From my list on how dogs love people.

Why am I passionate about this?

I have loved dogs since I was a kid and have been fascinated by a scientific approach to animal behavior since I was in college. About fifteen years ago I found a way to meld my love of dogs with my scientific expertise in animal behavior by studying how and why dogs love people. My quest to understand the human-dog relationship has taken me around the world: from hunting with native people in Nicaragua to examining the remains of a woman buried with a dog 12,000 years ago in Israel. And yes, I really do get to cuddle puppies for a living!

Clive's book list on how dogs love people

Clive D.L. Wynne Why did Clive love this book?

So (so) much has been written about Charles Darwin but this short book captures a side of the great man’s life that had been hiding in plain sight: his love of dogs. When Darwin was a youngster his father complained he “care[d] for nothing but shooting, dogs and rat-catching.” There was only one period of Darwin’s adulthood when he was not living with dogs and that was the five years he spent going 'round the world on a boat named – ironically enough – the Beagle. A love of dogs informed Darwin’s thinking on everything from marriage to his epochal theory of evolution by natural selection.

By Emma Townshend,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Darwin's Dogs as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Anyone who has ever looked at a dog waiting to go for a walk and thought there was something age-old and almost human in its sad expression can take comfort in knowing that Charles Darwin did exactly the same thing. But Darwin didn't just stop at feeling that there was some connection between humans and dogs. A great naturalist, pioneer of the theory of evolution, and incurable dog-lover, Darwin used his much-loved dogs as evidence in his continuing argument that all animals, including human beings, descended from one common ancestor. Emma Townshend looks at Darwin's life through a uniquely canine…


Book cover of On the Origin of Species By Means of Natural Selection

David F. Prindle Author Of Stephen Jay Gould and the Politics of Evolution

From my list on the politics of evolution.

Why am I passionate about this?

While growing up as a budding intellectual, two of my passions were social science (in other words, politics), and natural science, particularly biology. For decades, I thought of those as two unconnected fields of knowledge. I studied politics in my professional capacity as a government professor, and I read nature and wildlife studies as a hobby. Then, one day in 2000, I picked up a copy of a book by Stephen J. Gould, a Harvard paleontologist. It struck me that in every sentence he was combining science and politics. It was an on-the-road-to-Damascus moment. Since then, I have studied and written about the politics of evolution.  

David's book list on the politics of evolution

David F. Prindle Why did David love this book?

This is one of the two or three most influential science books ever published. But unlike the case with other science books, The Origin, published in 1859, is also of profound political importance. Part of this political importance—the implications of Darwin's theory for religious explanations of the diversity of life, which I call "outside" politics—is familiar to all socially-aware citizens. But there is much less awareness of the "inside" politics of evolution—the political implications of controversies within the science of evolutionary biology founded by Darwin. Of course, to understand both the inside and outside politics, you must read much more recent books. But you should begin by reading Darwin.

By Charles Darwin,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked On the Origin of Species By Means of Natural Selection as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

On the Origin of Species outlines Charles Darwin's world-changing theory that life on Earth had not been brought into being by a creator, but had arisen from a single common ancestor and had evolved over time through the process of natural selection.

This beautiful Macmillan Collector's Library edition of On the Origin of Species is complete and unabridged, and features an afterword by Oliver Francis. Designed to appeal to the booklover, the Macmillan Collector's Library is a series of beautiful gift editions of much loved classic titles. Macmillan Collector's Library are books to love and treasure.

Received with both enthusiasm…


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Interested in Charles Darwin, natural selection, and evolution?

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