Mother Nature: Maternal Instincts and How They Shape the Human Species

by Sarah Hrdy

Paperback, 2000

Status

Available

Call number

306.874

Collection

Publication

Ballantine Books (2000), Edition: 1, Paperback, 752 pages

Description

"Mother Nature presents a radical new way of understanding how mothers act and why, and how this new understanding is changing the way scientists think about how evolution works."--BOOK JACKET. "Drawing on anthropology, history, literature, developmental psychology, and animal behavior, Sarah Hrdy examines the distinct biological and genetic elements that constitute maternal instinct. She strips away the biases implicit in conventional stereotypes of female nature to give us very different and provocative perspectives on maternal ambivalence, the links between maternity and ambition, mother love and sexual love, and she explains why age-old tensions between the sexes persist and are being played out today in efforts to control women's reproductive choices."--BOOK JACKET.… (more)

User reviews

LibraryThing member jen.e.moore


A really excellent evolutionary history of mothers and infants. No, not evopsych. The good stuff.
LibraryThing member greeniezona
I was finally motivated to pull this weighty tome down off of the shelf after an intriguing review by my sister of Hrdy's most recent work: Mothers and Others. An anthropologist, Hrdy uses human history, observations of our closest evolutionary relatives, and even social insects to examine what is
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really the true nature of motherhood. As a feminist, she is perhaps not surprised to find that much of what we have traditionally viewed as natural maternal behavior is in fact wishful thinking.

I found this book incredibly impressive and profoundly influential. Many times I've found both Andrew and I reciting anecdotes and arguments from this book in discussions on gender and parenting. (There were quite a number of sections I just had to read aloud to Andrew.)

Though I didn't always agree with her every point, I look forward to reading other work by Hrdy, and will continue to recommend her far and wide.
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LibraryThing member mbmackay
Evolulutionary biology taking into account the different perspectives of the mother, the father & the embryo/child. Wonderful stuff.
Read Nov 2006

Original publication date

1999

Physical description

752 p.; 6.05 inches

ISBN

0345408934 / 9780345408938

Other editions

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