Brilliance Audio
Catching Fire: How Cooking Made Us Human
Key Metrics
- Richard Wrangham
- Brilliance Audio
- Audio
- 9781469298108
- 6.5 X 5.4 X 0.7 inches
- 0.35 pounds
- Social Science > Anthropology - General
- English
Secure TransactionBook Description
In Catching Fire, one of the most ambitious arguments about human evolution since Darwin's Descent of Man, renowned primatologist Richard Wrangham makes the claim that learning to cook food was the hinge on which human evolution turned. Eating cooked food, he argues, enabled us to evolve our large brains, and cooking itself became a primary focus of human social activity--in short, cooking made us the social, intelligent, and sexual species we are today. Path-breaking and provocative, Catching Fire will fascinate anyone interested in our ancient origins--or in our modern eating habits.
Catching Fire is convincing in argument and impressive in its explanatory power. A rich and important book. --Michael Pollan, author of In Defense of Food and The Omnivore's Dilemma
This is a daringly unorthodox book, and one that might just transform the way we understand ourselves. --Sunday Times (UK)
The ambition of Wrangham's theory gives it great appeal: Cooking is a powerful biological force and the universal activity around which the rest of human history--the households and tribes, the migrations and wars, the religion and science--arranged itself. But the added treat of the I-cook-therefore-I-am idea is the counterintuitive light it sheds on one of our most intense cultural preoccupations--living the right life by eating naturally. --Slate
An exhilarating book. --The Times (UK)
A cogent and compelling argument. --Washington Post
Absolutely fascinating. --Nigella Lawson
Author Bio
Richard Wrangham (PhD, Cambridge University, 1975) is Ruth B. Moore Professor of Biological Anthropology at Harvard University and founded the Kibale Chimpanzee Project in 1987. He has conducted extensive research on primate ecology, nutrition, and social behavior.
He is best known for his work on the evolution of human warfare, described in the book Demonic Males, and on the role of cooking in human evolution, described in the book Catching Fire: How Cooking Made Us Human. Together with Elizabeth Ross, he co-founded the Kasiisi Project in 1997, and serves as a patron of the Great Apes Survival Partnership (GRASP).
Source: Harvard University - Department of Human Evolutionary Biology
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