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Joe Henrich's Top Book Recommendations

Want to know what books Joe Henrich recommends on their reading list? We've researched interviews, social media posts, podcasts, and articles to build a comprehensive list of Joe Henrich's favorite book recommendations of all time.

1
Flannery and Marcus demonstrate that the rise of inequality was not simply the result of population increase, food surplus, or the accumulation of valuables but resulted from conscious manipulation of the unique social logic that lies at the core of every human group. Reversing the social logic can reverse inequality, they argue, without violence. less
Recommended by Joe Henrich, and 1 others.

Joe HenrichIf we go back before 10-12,000 years ago, current evidence suggests that most societies were relatively egalitarian. (Source)

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2

Not by Genes Alone

How Culture Transformed Human Evolution

Humans are a striking anomaly in the natural world. While we are similar to other mammals in many ways, our behavior sets us apart. Our unparalleled ability to adapt has allowed us to occupy virtually every habitat on earth using an incredible variety of tools and subsistence techniques. Our societies are larger, more complex, and more cooperative than any other mammal's. In this stunning exploration of human adaptation, Peter J. Richerson and Robert Boyd argue that only a Darwinian theory of cultural evolution can explain these unique characteristics.

Not by Genes Alone...
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Recommended by Joe Henrich, and 1 others.

Joe HenrichThey were using mathematical tools from population genetics, epidemiology, and other parts of science to systematically think about how culture transmits from one generation to another. (Source)

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3
Ambitious and elegant, this book builds a bridge between evolutionary theory and cultural psychology. Michael Tomasello is one of the very few people to have done systematic research on the cognitive capacities of both nonhuman primates and human children. The Cultural Origins of Human Cognition identifies what the differences are, and suggests where they might have come from.

Tomasello argues that the roots of the human capacity for symbol-based culture, and the kind of psychological development that takes place within it, are based in a cluster of uniquely human cognitive...
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Recommended by Helene Guldberg, Joe Henrich, and 2 others.

Helene GuldbergThis book I am equally or even more persuaded by. Tomasello argues that evolution must have endowed us with something uniquely powerful. He says the only possible solution to the puzzle of this explosion in creativity, the only biological mechanism that could have brought about these changes in such a short period of time, is a new capacity for social and cultural transmission. In other words,... (Source)

Joe HenrichHe is interested in something he calls the ‘ratchet’ effect. This is something we only see in humans. (Source)

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4
Explaining what William McNeill called The Rise of the West has become the central problem in the study of global history. In Guns, Germs, and Steel Jared Diamond presents the biologist's answer: geography, demography, and ecological happenstance. Diamond evenhandedly reviews human history on every continent since the Ice Age at a rate that emphasizes only the broadest movements of peoples and ideas. Yet his survey is binocular: one eye has the rather distant vision of the evolutionary biologist, while the other eye--and his heart--belongs to the people of New Guinea, where he... more

Bill GatesFascinating.... Lays a foundation for understanding human history. (Source)

Daniel EkA brilliant Pulitzer Prize-winning book about how the modern world was formed, analyzing how societies developed differently on different continents. (Source)

Yuval Noah HarariA book of big questions, and big answers. The book turned me from a historian of medieval warfare into a student of humankind. (Source)

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5

The Selfish Gene

Inheriting the mantle of revolutionary biologist from Darwin, Watson, and Crick, Richard Dawkins forced an enormous change in the way we see ourselves and the world with the publication of The Selfish Gene. Suppose, instead of thinking about organisms using genes to reproduce themselves, as we had since Mendel's work was rediscovered, we turn it around and imagine that "our" genes build and maintain us in order to make more genes. That simple reversal seems to answer many puzzlers which had stumped scientists for years, and we haven't thought of evolution in the same way since.

Why...

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Charles T. Mungerrecommends this book in the second edition of Poor Charlie’s Almanack. (Source)

Matt RidleyTurned evolutionary biology on its head and was written like a great detective story. (Source)

Phil LibinHad a profound influence on me pretty early on. (Source)

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