The Story Human Body Evolution

The Story of the Human Body: Evolution, Health, and Disease (Hardcover) Customer review from the Amazon Vine Program (What's this?) I was familiar with Daniel Leiberman's work on human evolution and endurance running. He wrote a fairly famous, at least amongst runners, paper in the prestigious journal Nature, called "Endurance running and the evolution of Homo" as well as a number of other well-received paper related to running, evolution, and/or human heads. He's a professor at Harvard, and that site has links to his papers and achievements.

Rather than a summary, which a number of other reviewers have already done, I will list the chapter titles and subheadings, which can reveal some of the more detailed info presented in this book since there are subheadings every few pages, for the most part. So this is kind of a supplement to the standard reviews.

1. Introduction: What Are Humans Adapted For?, How Natural Selection Works, The Thorny Concept of Adaptation, Why the Human Evolutionary Past Matters, Why Evolution Matters for the Present and the Future Too
2. Upstanding Apes: How We Became Bipeds, The Elusive Missing Link, Who Were the First Hominins?, Will the First Hominin Please Stand Up?, Dietary Differences, Why Be a Biped?, Why Bipedalism Matters
3. Much Depends On Dinner: How the Australopiths Partly Weaned Us off Fruit, Lucy's Gang: The Australopiths, The First Junk Food Diet, What Large Teeth You Have, Grandma!, Tottering for Tubers, Your Inner Australopith
4. The First Hunter-Gatherers: How Nearly Modern Bodies Evolved in the Human Genus, Who Were the First Humans?, How Did H. Erectus Get Dinner?, Trekking, Evolved to Run, Tooling Around, Guts and Brains
5. Energy in the Ice Age: How We Evolved Big Brains Along with Large, Fat, Gradually Growing Bodies, Getting By and Getting Around in the Ice Age, Archaic Humans of the Ice Age, Our Neanderthal Cousins, Big Brains, Growing Gradually, Fat Bodies, Where Did the Energy Come From?, An Energetic Twist: The Tale of the Hobbits of Flores, What Happened to Archaic Humans?
6. A Very Cultured Species: How Modern Humans Colonized the World with a Combination of Brains plus Brawn, Who Were the First Homo Sapiens?, What's "Modern" About Modern Humans?, Do Modern Humans Have Better Brains?, The Gift of Gab, Evolution of Cultural Evolution, Brains Brawn and the Triumph of Modern Humans
7. Progress, Mismatch, and Dysevolution: The Consequences -- Good and Bad -- of Having Paleolithic Bodies in a Post-Paleolithic World, How Are We Still Evolving?, Why Medicine Needs a Dose of Evolution, Mismatch, The Vicious Circle of Dysevolution
8. Paradise Lost?: The Fruits and Follies of Becoming Farmers, The Very First Farmers, How and Why Did Farming Spread?, The Farmer's Diet: A Mixed Blessing, Farm Labor, Populations Pests and Plagues, Was Farming Worth It?, Mismatch and Evolution Since Farming
9. Modern Times, Modern Bodies: The Paradox of Human Health in the Industrial Era, What Was the Industrial Revolution?, Physical Activity, Industrial Diets, Industrial Medicine and Sanitation, Industrial Sleep, The Good News: Taller Longer Lived and Healthier Bodies, The Bad News: More Chronic Disability from More Mismatch Diseases, Is the Epidemiological Transition the Price of Progress?
10. The Vicious Circle of Too Much: Why Too Much Energy Can Make Us Sick, How the Body Stores Uses and Converts Energy, Why Are We So Prone to Plumping?, How and Why Are We Getting Fatter?, Type 2 Diabetes: A Preventable Disease, The Silent Inflammatory Killer, The Nuns' Disease, Are Too Many Riches an Embarrassment?
11. Disuse: Why We Are Losing It by Not Using It, Why Growing Up Needs to Be Stressful, Why Bones Need to Be Stressed Enough (but Not Too Much), Osteoporosis, Unwise Wisdom Teeth, A Little Dirt Never Hurt, No Strain No Gain
12. The Hidden Dangers of Novelty and Comfort: Why Everyday Innovations Can Damage Us, The Sense and Sensibility of Shoes, Focusing on Focusing, Fetch the Comfy Chair, Beyond Comfort
13. Survival of the Fitter: Can Evolutionary Logic Help Cultivate a Better Future for the Human Body?, Approach 1: Let Natural Selection Sort the Problem Out, Approach 2: Invest More in Biomedical Research and Treatment, Approach 3: Educate and Empower, Approach 4: Change the Environment, Last Words: Marching Backward into the Future

This book has so many important things to say that I am giving it as a Christmas gift to several people.


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