Review by Kirkus Book Review
The title suggests that Ardrey is going to be less didactic than usual in this latest popularization on human evolution. He isn't. He is convinced that Man is Man because he became a hunter. For hunter, read killer, because Ardrey emphasizes that killing was necessary for survival (as opposed to scavenging or food-gathering). Thus we bear this trait in our genes and show it in our xenophobia, murder, war. This overstated theme and the macho-cutesy tone of a chapter in which the ladies of the primate line are esteemed for inventing estrus and sexual insatiability mar the book's good points. Ardrey is up-to-date in his account of the most recent hominid finds and credible in his summary of the climatic changes that ushered in the human line. But he is not the first to say that a shrinking forest and exploratory behavior encouraged bipedalism, visual acuity or manual dexterity on the savannah. Or that these traits in animals accustomed to group living fostered cooperation in the hunt, division of labor, food-sharing. In short--that with killing comes altruism. Nor is it new and different to say that these things could come about before a major brain expansion. But the reader should recognize that it is merely Ardrey's opinion that the Neanderthals were slaughtered by our ancestors or that males resist female incursions in business because of traditional territorial imperatives. In the final chapter the usual Asdrey ebullience gives way to predictions of catastrophic climatic changes and unleashed human self-destructiveness. Yet, he insists optimistically, a few may survive. . . a few may adapt. Copyright ©Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Review by Kirkus Book Review
