Mothers and others
Subtitle: the evolutionary origins of mutual understanding
By: Sarah Blaffer Hrdy.
Publisher: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press
Published: 2009
Place of publication: Cambridge, Mass
Language: eng
Number of pages: 422
ISBN-13: 9780674032996
Subjects: Mother and child; Parental behavior in animals; Child rearing -- Psychological aspects; Behavior evolution
Description: "Somewhere in Africa, more than a million years ago, a line of apes began to rear their young differently than their Great Ape ancestors. From this new form of care came new ways of engaging and understanding each other. How such singular human capacities evolved, and how they have kept us alive for thousands of generations, is the mystery revealed in this bold and wide-ranging new vision of human emotional evolution." "Mothers and Others finds the key in the primatologically unique length of human childhood. If the young were to survive in a world of scarce food, they needed to be cared for, not only by their mothers but also by siblings, aunts, fathers, friends - and, with any luck, grandmothers. Out of this complicated and contingent form of childrearing, Sarah Hrdy argues, came the human capacity for understanding others. Mothers and others teach us who will care, and who will not"--Jacket.
Notes: Includes bibliographical references and index.
Table of contents: title: Apes on a plane; title: Why us and not them?; title: Why it takes a village; title: Novel developments; title: Will the real pleistocene family please step forward?; title: Meet the Alloparents; title: Babies as sensory traps; title: Grandmothers among others; title: Childhood and the descent of man.