A review by gnome_friend
Mothers and Others: The Evolutionary Origins of Mutual Understanding by Sarah Blaffer Hrdy

4.0

One of the few books attempting to explain "what makes us human" without discounting how we are still fundamentally primates and not of a radically different essence than other living things. Humans have developed a distinctive type of relationship to others due to a history of cooperative breeding among kin. This book explores the evolutionary steps since our common ancestor with chimpanzees and bonobos that have contributed to our longer lifespans and community-based child-rearing systems. While it does still present a narrow definition of "sapience" and sometimes neglect bonobo traits in reconstructing ape ancestors, I find the logic presented here quite compelling and useful in understanding how our social structures could better serve children.