The Ape That Understood the Universe by Steve Stewart-Williams

The Ape That Understood the Universe
by Steve Stewart-Williams

Cambridge University Press
September 13, 2018

From Goodreads:

The Ape that Understood the Universe is the story of the strangest animal in the world: the human animal. It opens with a question: How would an alien scientist view our species? What would it make of our sex differences, our sexual behavior, our child-rearing patterns, our moral codes, our religions, languages, and science? The book tackles these issues by drawing on ideas from two major schools of thought: evolutionary psychology and cultural evolutionary theory. The guiding assumption is that humans are animals, and that like all animals, we evolved to pass on our genes. At some point, however, we also evolved the capacity for culture – and from that moment, culture began evolving in its own right. This transformed us from a mere ape into an ape capable of reshaping the planet, travelling to other worlds, and understanding the vast universe of which we’re but a tiny, fleeting fragment.

The good people at Cambridge University Press and NetGalley provided me a digital ARC in exchange for a fair and honest review. 

I really didn’t know what I was getting into with this book. I knew it was about culture and evolution, with focus on our creation and recognition of culture. Didn’t know much more, but I was definitely interested.

What happened from there was a mixture of immensely interesting information and repetition of said information. To be fair, this is non-fiction. Repetitiveness may be intentional to get certain facts through skulls as thick as mine. But like I said, there was some really interesting stuff.

The thing that I found the most interesting is how much our current society strives against what our genes have designed us to do. Nearly every behaviour our genes have programmed into us over centuries of survival and replication are the exact things we try to resist on a daily basis. From relationships, to the way we eat, to the way we treat each other. It’s all backwards. But thanks to our culture, the advances we’ve made, we’re still able to make it all work and survive. 

There’s some really interesting things in this book, but as I said, it gets repetitive and it’s really long. Although the author seems to have a very witty sense of humour, it wasn’t enough to make the pages pass by effortlessly. If I had to reread this one, I might prefer an audiobook version. 

Fun fact about this post: as I write, there are 3 people snoring around me. My wife beside me, my son in the next room, and my dog at my feet.