Marlene Zuk, “Paleofantasy: What Evolution Really Tells Us about Sex, Diet, and How We Live” (Norton, 2013)

Marlene Zuk, “Paleofantasy: What Evolution Re...

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Mark A. Johnson, "American Bacon: The History of a Food Phenomenon" (U Georgia Press, 2026)

In American Bacon: The History of a Food Phenomenon (U Georgia Press, 2026), Dr. Mark A. Johnson asks (and answers) a seemingly simple question: How has bacon overcome centuries of religious prohibition, cultural contempt, and dietary advice to become a twenty-first-century culin ...  Show more

Rawlston Williams, "The Caribbean Cookbook" (Phaidon Press, 2026)

An exploration of Caribbean cuisine and culinary history, featuring more than 380 authentic home cooking recipes from across the region Caribbean cuisine reveals a culture of boundless imagination and creativity. It is the result of resourcefulness and ingenuity, where the need t ...  Show more

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John Waldman, “Running Silver: Restoring Atlantic Rivers and Their Great Fish Migrations” (Lyons Press, 2013)
New Books in Science

When it comes to understanding why our planet’s biodiversity is declining so precipitously, no phrase has as much explanatory power as “shifting baselines” — as essayist Derrick Jensen put it, “[T]he process of becoming accustomed to, and accepting as normal, worsening conditions ...  Show more

Futureproof Gold: Evolution's Bite
Futureproof with Jonathan McCrea

Evolution is constantly adapting us to our environment, making species more suited and better equipped to survive in their natural habitat. So why did our distant ancestors have better teeth than we do? And what can the study of our gnashers tell us about our diet, our oral healt ...  Show more

Brian Villmoare, "The Evolution of Everything: The Patterns and Causes of Big History" (Cambridge UP, 2023)
New Books in Anthropology

Big History seeks to retell the human story in light of scientific advances by such methods as radiocarbon dating and genetic analysis. Brian Villmoare's book The Evolution of Everything: The Patterns and Causes of Big History (Cambridge UP, 2023) provides a deep, causal view of ...  Show more

Nature Red in Tooth and Claw
A Point of View

"For several centuries", writes Rebecca Stott, "the dominant Western version of Nature has been Mother Nature, benevolent, ever-giving, nurturing, bountiful and compliant". This was later replaced by a less compliant and benevolent image....but we've always perpetuated an idea of ...  Show more