This fascinating collection of essays exposes us as the animals that we are while explaining behaviours that are deeply & recognizably human. The first section, ' Our Genes & Who We Are', focuses on our genetic endowment & the forces it creates in our lives, such as our need to seek out beauty. Another essay explains the invisible genetic warfare that takes place between men & women as they conceive a baby, which continues as the foetus develops.
The second part of the book, ' Our Bodies & Who We Are', ponders such diverse topics as why dreams are in fact dream-like; why we are sexually attracted to one another; why Alzheimer's disease tends to be a post-menopausal phenomenon; & why grandmothers buying groceries for their grandchildren are part of nature's Darwinian logic. In the third section, ' Society & Who We Are, ' Sapolsky takes his interdisciplinary curiosity out into the wilds of civilization & poses such interesting questions as when & why our preferences in food become fixed. Or, why do desert cultures tend to be monotheistic & sexually repressed whereas rainforest dwellers tend towards sexually-relaxed polytheistic cultures? Why do people from the lower economic classes have more health problems?
In each of these investigations, we see Sapolsky's brilliant mind synthesizing a wealth of research in a thoughtful, engaging way that satisfyingly reveals the enormous complexity of simply being a human animal.