The Mating Mind. How Sexual Choice shaped the Evolution of Human Nature. First Printing. Signed by the Author

Miller, Geoffrey

ISBN 10: 0434007412 / ISBN 13: 9780434007417

Published by London. William Heinemann Ltd, 2000

About this Item

London. William Heinemann Ltd. 2000. First Edition/First Printing ( full number line including 1 on the copyright page). Hard Cover. Medium 8vo 9½" x 6  [24cm x 15cm] approx. 433 pp and detailed end matter. Black cloth boards with gilt titles to the spine. Flat signed by the author direct to the title page without dedication. The book is square and firmly bound. No previous ownership inscriptions or remainder marks The boards are clean and unfaded, the corners and spine ends sharp The pages and closed page edges are clean. The dust jacket is crisp and complete and unclipped at £20. The colours are bright, fresh and unfaded, corners and spine ends are sharp. Hint of toning to the fore edge. Book is fine; jacket as new. Evolutionary psychologist Geoffrey Miller shows the evolutionary power of sexual choice, and the reason why our ancestors became attracted not only to pretty faces and healthy bodies, but to minds that were witty, articulate, generous, and conscious. The dust jacket will be protected with a new inert archival Brodart sleeve which is removable. Please contact us if you would like any more information or additional images. Postage price quoted outside the UK is for a book up to 1kg using UPS or Transglobal Express. For books sent within the UK, there will be no extra charge for books up to 2kg which are sent by Royal Mail. Postage quoted in the UK is the actual cost (£3.45). All books are sent in protective packing and custom book box. If your book is intended as a gift, please let us know and we will gift wrap it free of charge with a card and any message. Seller Inventory # 25MAY02051

Bibliographic Details

Title: The Mating Mind. How Sexual Choice shaped ...

Publisher: London. William Heinemann Ltd

Publication Date: 2000

Binding: Hardcover

Condition: Fine

Dust Jacket Condition: As New

Signed: Signed by Author(s)

Edition: 1st Edition

About this title

Synopsis:

Evolutionary psychologist geoffrey Miller shows the evolutionary power of sexual choice, and the reason why our ancestors became attracted not only to pretty faces and healthy bodies, but to minds that were witty, articulate, generous, and conscious.

Review:

Evolutionary psychology has been called the "new black" of science fashion, though at its most controversial it more resembles the emperor's new clothes. Geoffrey Miller is one of the Young Turks trying to give the phenomenon a better spin. In The Mating Mind he takes Darwin's "other" evolutionary theory--of sexual rather than natural selection--and uses it to build a theory about how the human mind has developed the sophistication of a peacock's tail to encourage sexual choice and the refining of art, morality, music and literature.

Where many evolutionary psychologists see the mind as a Swiss army knife, and cognitive science sees it as a computer, Miller's analogy is to an entertainment system, evolved to stimulate other brains. Taking up the baton from studies such as Richard Dawkins' The Selfish Gene, it's a dizzyingly ambitious project which would be impossibly vague without the ingenuity and irreverence which Miller brings to bear. Steeped in popular culture, it mixes theories of runaway selection, fitness-indicators and sensory bias with explanations of why men tip more than women and how female choice shaped (quite literally) the penis. It also extols the sagacity of Mary Poppins (Miller allows ideas to cascade at such a torrent that the steam given off can run the risk of being mistaken for hot air).

That large personalities can be as sexually enticing as oversize breasts or biceps may indeed prove solacing, but denuding sexual chemistry can be a curiously unsexy business, akin to analysing humour. As a courting display of Miller's intellectual plumage, though, The Mating Mind is formidable: its agent provocateur chest swelled with ideas and articulate conjecture. While occasionally his magpie instinct may loot fool's gold, overall it provides an accessible and attractive insight into modern Darwinism and the survival of the sexiest. --David Vincent