Mother Nature: Maternal Instincts and How They Shape the Human Species

' A] magisterial survey of childbearing through the ages . . . It wams the heart to witness the fierce loyalty this sophisticated feminist professor of anthropology . . . bears towards her paleolithic sisters.'--San Francisco Chronicle Maternal instinct--the all-consuming, utterly selfless love that mothers lavish on their children--has long been assumed to be an innate, indeed defining element of a woman's nature. But is it? In this provocative, groundbreaking book, renowned anthropologist (and mother) Sarah Blaffer Hrdy shares a radical new vision of motherhood and its crucial role in human evolution. Hrdy strips away stereotypes and gender-biased myths to demonstrate that traditional views of maternal behavior are essentially wishful thinking codified as objective observation. As Hrdy argues, far from being 'selfless,' successful primate mothers have always combined nurturing with ambition, mother love with sexual love, ambivalence with devotion. In fact all mothers, in the