• The Secret of Our Success

  • How Culture Is Driving Human Evolution, Domesticating Our Species, and Making Us Smarter
  • By: Joseph Henrich
  • Narrated by: Jonathan Yen
  • Length: 17 hrs and 15 mins
  • 4.7 out of 5 stars (283 ratings)

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The Secret of Our Success

By: Joseph Henrich
Narrated by: Jonathan Yen
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Publisher's summary

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.

©2015 Princeton University Press (P)2018 Tantor

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    3 out of 5 stars
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    3 out of 5 stars

The power of sociality to supercharge evolution

This is an interesting book on cultural anthropology and how our very social brains influenced human evolution. We tend to think of evolution as a primarily biological process, but the authors do a good job of showing how social interaction had a profound impact on the transformation of our bodies and brains.

The authors are two very smart people and the book explains some of the most interesting research being done in evolutionary science.

Humanity’s killer app was not so much our big brains, it was the development of social systems that allowed important knowledge to be stored and shared within a tribe and over time. One person could come up with a game changing survival tactic. Sociality allowed that innovation to promulgate. Thus the tactic didn’t disappear when that person died. Physical evolution takes a very long time. Human cultural evolution can happen in a single generation.

Social and cultural evolution lead the way to important physical changes. Domestication of animals literally changed our human bodies. Adults quickly developed the ability to digest dairy. Social hunting techniques drove changes in our bodies that facilitated the ability to throw projectiles, run faster, and sweat.

The authors show how adherence to social norms was (and continues to be) a powerful driver that’s now hardwired into our brains. New research shows that infants will punish a wrongdoer and reward those who follow the rules.

This book needed to be edited a bit more astutely. Quite a few times it wandered off into the weeds. The authors have so much knowledge that it’s just hard for them not to reveal everything they know. It was a bit of a bipolar read - either delightfully engrossing or annoyingly tangential. Had the book been 25% shorter, it would have been stronger.

Still, I learned a lot. It revolutionized my opinion on the power of sociality to accelerate human evolution. Humanity’s ability to work as a team is our greatest superpower. We bicker, fight and kill each other, but underneath all that bluster are powerfully effective social systems that continue to allow homos sapiens to learn, survive catastrophes, and care for each other.

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7 people found this helpful

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One of the rare accessible, paradigm-shifting books!

I think this book will appeal to both academics and the general public. However, some of the evolutionary concepts *might* require a little extra work (e.g. Wikipedia) for some non-scientific folks.
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”.


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6 people found this helpful

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An intellectual goldmine

This book is absolutely remarkable. Paired with *The Weirdest People in the World," an audio/book I also highly recommend, I believe this to be the most valuable contribution to the social scientific understanding of our world in my lifetime. (I'm a practicing social scientist and nearly 50.) Henrich uses a theory of cultural evolution, grounded in standard Darwinian evolution, to explain how humans and their societies work. I have long disliked socio-biological books that make assertions like "all men are horndogs who just want sex and don't care about taking care of kids," or what have you. Henrich's causal stories are rooted in a much more sophisticated application of Darwinian theory to human life. He is able to explain *variation* in outcomes using evolutionary theory, e.g., why some tribal societies are able to grow in size while others are not, or why men in monogamous societies experience a drop in testosterone after getting married and having kids, but men in polygamous societies don't.

Among Henrich's intellectual virtues: he's intellectually ambitious and gutsy as heck without being reckless, scrupulous and up-to-date in his techniques of causal explanation, very widely read, lucid and fun to read. He grapples with counterarguments without being ponderously academic, and he manages to make assertions that are both counterintuitive and viscerally plausible.

If you want to understand how our species and our societies have evolved, listen to this book. Then, once you're hooked, go listen to his next one, on the "WEIRDest People in the World," which uses the insights of this book to explain the origins of the modern world.

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3 people found this helpful

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    4 out of 5 stars

A bit long but rewarding

This is a very detailed book, and much of it doesn’t lend itself to the audio format - lists, diagrams etc. Nonetheless, the ideas were new and interesting to a layman such as myself.

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3 people found this helpful

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Excellent book

Excellent book on culture-gene coevolution. It’s a must read for everyone who works in the domain of culture or simply wants to better understand culture. The audio performance is great too

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    4 out of 5 stars

Great subject, clumsy delivery

The narrator at times sounds almost like they’re imitating an old times radio announcer. The material is compelling enough that I sat through most of the book suffering through the narration. This is one I may buy in physical form so I can skip through all the foreshadowing of what’s to come in future chapters. Some of the earlier chapters seem to be nothing but talking about what the author will talk about later. It gets a little annoying.

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.

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Clear and compelling argument and richly detailed analysis

Fascinating and convincing book. Not my field but still of great interest. Henrich does a great job of moving the book along through complex theoretical discussions and breaking down difficult concepts. Highly recommended for anyone interested in human evolution, psychology, and culture.

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.

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Highly recommended, eye-opening

This really stayed with me. Such an enlightening take about, well, what truly is The Secret of Our Success. Human’s ability to put their heads together. Makes this time of inter connectivity feels so important. I was down on humanity until this book and Rutger Bregman’s HumanKind restored my optimism.

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Pseudo science

A lot of old information or things that have not been fact checked in this book. Everything else is common sense. Don’t waste your money. Wish I would have known he was sexist and prejudice before I listened. Hoping I can return this one.

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    4 out of 5 stars
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    4 out of 5 stars

Ruminations of a Biologist/Sophist

I'm usually looking for books with more concrete evidence. This one is more about the philosophy of biology. There are definitely some superfluous intuitions (people who are exposed to more sun have more melanin) but also more insightful ones (why humans evolved to be social creatures). It is definitely interesting on some level, but be aware this is more on philosophy than it is biology.

The performance is decent, but slow. This was the fastest I ever sped up a book before (2.75x), partially because most of the material was not that difficult to follow, but also because of the rate of which the narrator spoke.

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