
The Secret of Our Success
How Culture Is Driving Human Evolution, Domesticating Our Species, and Making Us Smarter
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Narrated by:
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Jonathan Yen
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By:
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Joseph Henrich
About this listen
Humans are a puzzling species. On the one hand, we struggle to survive on our own in the wild, often failing to overcome even basic challenges, like obtaining food, building shelters, or avoiding predators. On the other hand, human groups have produced ingenious technologies, sophisticated languages, and complex institutions that have permitted us to successfully expand into a vast range of diverse environments.
What has enabled us to dominate the globe, more than any other species, while remaining virtually helpless as lone individuals? This book shows that the secret of our success lies not in our innate intelligence, but in our collective brains - on the ability of human groups to socially interconnect and learn from one another over generations.
Drawing insights from lost European explorers, clever chimpanzees, mobile hunter-gatherers, neuroscientific findings, ancient bones, and the human genome, Joseph Henrich demonstrates how our collective brains have propelled our species' genetic evolution and shaped our biology.
PLEASE NOTE: When you purchase this title, the accompanying reference material will be available in your Library section along with the audio.
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- By: Matthew D. Lieberman
- Narrated by: Mike Chamberlain
- Length: 11 hrs and 16 mins
- Unabridged
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In Social, renowned psychologist Matthew Lieberman explores groundbreaking research in social neuroscience, revealing that our need to connect with other people is even more fundamental, more basic, than our need for food or shelter. Because of this, our brain uses its spare time to learn about the social world-other people and our relation to them.
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"Bowling Alone" For Your Brain...
- By Douglas on 12-08-13
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Grand Transitions
- How the Modern World Was Made
- By: Vaclav Smil
- Narrated by: Robert Fass
- Length: 16 hrs and 15 mins
- Unabridged
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What makes the modern world work? The answer to this deceptively simple question lies in four "grand transitions" of civilization - in populations, agriculture, energy, and economics - that have transformed the way we live.
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Nihil novum sub soli
- By Sam J. on 08-29-22
By: Vaclav Smil
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The Book of Humans
- A Brief History of Culture, Sex, War, and the Evolution of Us
- By: Adam Rutherford
- Narrated by: Adam Rutherford
- Length: 5 hrs and 48 mins
- Unabridged
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Evolutionary theory has long established that humans are animals: Modern Homo sapiens are primates who share an ancestor with monkeys and other great apes. Our genome is 98 percent identical to a chimpanzee's. And yet we think of ourselves as exceptional. Are we? In this original and entertaining tour of life on Earth, Adam Rutherford explores the profound paradox of the "human animal".
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Scattered and anecdotal
- By Nemo71 on 09-29-19
By: Adam Rutherford
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Energy and Civilization
- A History
- By: Vaclav Smil
- Narrated by: David Colacci
- Length: 20 hrs and 9 mins
- Unabridged
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In this monumental history, Vaclav Smil provides a comprehensive account of how energy has shaped society, from pre-agricultural foraging societies through today's fossil fuel-driven civilization and offers listeners a magisterial overview of humanity's energy eras.
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Not a good format for this book
- By C. Hoogeboom on 05-19-18
By: Vaclav Smil
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Tesla
- Wizard at War: The Genius, the Particle Beam Weapon, and the Pursuit of Power
- By: Marc J. Seifer
- Narrated by: Simon Vance
- Length: 13 hrs and 13 mins
- Unabridged
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Drawing on 40 years of research and a treasure trove of new information, Tesla: Wizard at War provides a comprehensive view of Tesla's discoveries, which continue to influence today's military technology and diplomatic strategies. One of the world's leading Tesla experts, Marc J. Seifer, offers new insight into the brilliant scientist's particle beam weapon (aka the "Death Ray") and explores his military negotiations with pivotal historical figures - including his links to Joseph Stalin, Vannevar Bush, General Andrew McNaughton, and Franklin Delano Roosevelt.
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review from an electrician
- By Ashton Zee on 12-13-21
By: Marc J. Seifer
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The Moral Animal
- Why We Are the Way We Are: The New Science of Evolutionary Psychology
- By: Robert Wright
- Narrated by: Greg Thornton
- Length: 16 hrs and 30 mins
- Unabridged
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Are men literally born to cheat? Does monogamy actually serve women's interests? These are among the questions that have made The Moral Animal one of the most provocative science books in recent years. Wright unveils the genetic strategies behind everything from our sexual preferences to our office politics - as well as their implications for our moral codes and public policies.
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Ridiculously Insightful
- By Liron on 10-25-10
By: Robert Wright
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Complexity
- The Emerging Science at the Edge of Order and Chaos
- By: M. Mitchell Waldrop
- Narrated by: Mikael Naramore
- Length: 17 hrs and 8 mins
- Unabridged
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In a rarified world of scientific research, a revolution has been brewing. Its activists are not anarchists, but rather Nobel Laureates in physics and economics and pony-tailed graduates, mathematicians, and computer scientists from all over the world. They have formed an iconoclastic think-tank and their radical idea is to create a new science: complexity. They want to know how a primordial soup of simple molecules managed to turn itself into the first living cell--and what the origin of life some four billion years ago can tell us about the process of technological innovation today.
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You won't learn anything you didn't know
- By Dennis E. Alwine on 12-26-20
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Seeing Like a State
- By: James C. Scott
- Narrated by: Michael Kramer
- Length: 16 hrs and 6 mins
- Unabridged
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Why do well-intentioned plans for improving the human condition go tragically awry? Author James C. Scott analyzes failed cases of large-scale authoritarian plans in a variety of fields. Centrally managed social plans misfire, Scott argues, when they impose schematic visions that do violence to complex interdependencies that are not - and cannot - be fully understood. Further, the success of designs for social organization depends upon the recognition that local, practical knowledge is as important as formal, epistemic knowledge.
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Beats a dead horse and then beats it again
- By Nathan Parker on 10-29-20
By: James C. Scott
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The Chip
- How Two Americans Invented the Microchip and Launched a Revolution
- By: T.R. Reid
- Narrated by: Tom Perkins
- Length: 9 hrs and 32 mins
- Unabridged
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Barely 50 years ago a computer was a gargantuan, vastly expensive thing that only a handful of scientists had ever seen. The world's brightest engineers were stymied in their quest to make these machines small and affordable until the solution finally came from two ingenious young Americans. Jack Kilby and Robert Noyce hit upon the stunning discovery that would make possible the silicon microchip, a work that would ultimately earn Kilby the Nobel Prize for physics in 2000.
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Great narration, sloppy writing
- By Constantly Learning on 10-06-22
By: T.R. Reid
However, the fundamental concepts of cultural evolution are very clearly laid out. It is made evident how foundational cultural evolution is to our species in almost every aspect of our human lives. I found the material fascinating, and has triggered many avenues of further research and study for me.
Great subject, clumsy delivery
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Enjoyed it, but narration was lacking
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Culture and Human Evolution
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For me this book significantly shifted my perspective and understanding of the “human story” in a major and permanent way. Other books that had that level of impact on me were “Thinking Fast and Slow” by Daniel Kahneman and Jared Diamond’s “Guns, Germs, and Steel”.
One of the rare accessible, paradigm-shifting books!
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Great book, but audio is way too quiet. Can barely heart with AirPods in the city streets
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Some have complained about the narrator but I think he’s very good. A bit of an old timey radio voice vibe, yes, but his delivery is clear and expressive. His vocal patterns make the technical material more digestible and it’s clear he understands the gist of what he’s saying.
Clear and compelling argument and richly detailed analysis
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One teacher leads to degredation
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MUST READ - absolutely fundamental
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Brilliant
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insightful summary of culture/gene coevolution
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