In Ancient Bodies, Modern Lives, anthropologist Wenda Trevathan explores a range of women's health issues, with a specific focus on reproduction, that may be viewed through an evolutionary lens. Trevathan illustrates the power and potential of examining the human life cycle from an evolutionary perspective, and how such an approach could help improve both our understanding of women's health and our ability to respond to health challenges in creative and effective ways.

Winner of the 2011 W.W. Howells Book Award of the American Anthropological Association How has bipedalism impacted human childbirth? Do PMS and postpartum depression have specific, maybe even beneficial, functions? These are only two of the many questions that specialists in evolutionary medicine seek to answer, and that anthropologist Wenda Trevathan addresses in Ancient Bodies, Modern Lives. Exploring a range of women's health issues that may be viewed through an evolutionary lens, specifically focusing on reproduction, Trevathan delves into issues such as the medical consequences of early puberty in girls, the impact of migration, culture change, and poverty on reproductive health, and how fetal growth retardation affects health in later life. Hypothesizing that many of the health challenges faced by women today result from a mismatch between how their bodies have evolved and the contemporary environments in which modern humans live, Trevathan sheds light on the power and potential of examining the human life cycle from an evolutionary perspective, and how this could improve our understanding of women's health and our ability to confront health challenges in more creative, effective ways.

A landmark book of popular science that gives us a lucid and engaging account of how the human body evolved over millions of years—with charts and line drawings throughout. “Fascinating.... A readable introduction to the whole field and great on the making of our physicality.”—Nature In this book, Daniel E. Lieberman illuminates the major transformations that contributed to key adaptations to the body: the rise of bipedalism; the shift to a non-fruit-based diet; the advent of hunting and gathering; and how cultural changes like the Agricultural and Industrial Revolutions have impacted us physically. He shows how the increasing disparity between the jumble of adaptations in our Stone Age bodies and advancements in the modern world is occasioning a paradox: greater longevity but increased chronic disease. And finally—provocatively—he advocates the use of evolutionary information to help nudge, push, and sometimes even compel us to create a more salubrious environment and pursue better lifestyles.

By presenting rigorous situated histories of changing training regimen in different cultures, this collection of papers collectively challenge orthodox notions of the perfect body and its pursuit. The introductory essay by the editor compares and contrasts the different methods and ideals. Ancient regimen and techniques may seem remote, yet many attempt to resolve issues that are common to us all. Some are directed at the immortality or longevity of the physical body, and include performance-enhancing nutrition and drug taking; others train the spirit and souls for the afterlife. Many emphasise the interconnectedness of the human body with its environment. The papers set their topic in its broad socio-political and cultural context, facilitating a dialogue with other contributors who considered many similar questions for the 20th and 21st centuries. Histories of sports, body cultivation and sports medicines in non-European cultures are only just now beginning to emerge. With the Olympics approaching in London, it is timely to explore the diverse traditions of perfecting body and soul, as a fascinating historical project in itself, but also to provide a rich context for envisioning a more widely beneficial approach to sports, medicine and immortality for all.

General Adult. An anthropological report on gender roles in prehistoric times draws on a wealth of recent studies that offers insight into the history of sexual identity as it developed hundreds of thousands of years ago, challenging modern stereotypes and assumptions to explain the different ways in which ancient people defined themselves.

A SUNDAY TIMES HISTORY BOOK OF THE YEAR 'A triumph' Guardian 'Glorious ... makes the past at once familiar, exotic and thrilling.' Dominic Sandbrook 'A brilliant book' Mail on Sunday Just like us, medieval men and women worried about growing old, got blisters and indigestion, fell in love and had children. And yet their lives were full of miraculous and richly metaphorical experiences radically different to our own, unfolding in a world where deadly wounds might be healed overnight by divine intervention, or the heart of a king, plucked from his corpse, could be held aloft as a powerful symbol of political rule. In this richly-illustrated and unusual history, Jack Hartnell uncovers the fascinating ways in which people thought about, explored and experienced their physical selves in the Middle Ages, from Constantinople to Cairo and Canterbury. Unfolding like a medieval pageant, and filled with saints, soldiers, caliphs, queens, monks and monstrous beasts, it throws light on the medieval body from head to toe - revealing the surprisingly sophisticated medical knowledge of the time in the process. Bringing together medicine, art, music, politics, philosophy and social history, there is no better guide to what life was really like for the men and women who lived and died in the Middle Ages. Medieval Bodies is published in association with Wellcome Collection.

A provocative exploration of the tension between our evolutionary history and our modern woes—and what we can do about it. We are living through the most prosperous age in all of human history, yet we are listless, divided, and miserable. Wealth and comfort are unparalleled, but our political landscape is unmoored, and rates of suicide, lone­liness, and chronic illness continue to skyrocket. How do we explain the gap between these truths? And how should we respond? For evolutionary biologists Heather Heying and Bret Weinstein, the cause of our troubles is clear: the accelerat­ing rate of change in the modern world has outstripped the capacity of our brains and bodies to adapt. We evolved to live in clans, but today many people don’t even know their neighbors’ names. In our haste to discard outdated gender roles, we increasingly deny the flesh-and-blood realities of sex—and its ancient roots. The cognitive dissonance spawned by trying to live in a society we are not built for is killing us. In this book, Heying and Weinstein draw on decades of their work teaching in college classrooms and explor­ing Earth’s most biodiverse ecosystems to confront today’s pressing social ills—from widespread sleep deprivation and dangerous diets to damaging parenting styles and back­ward education practices. Asking the questions many mod­ern people are afraid to ask, A Hunter-Gatherer’s Guide to the 21st Century outlines a science-based worldview that will empower you to live a better, wiser life.

A path-breaking scholar's insightful reexamination of the resurrection of the body and the construction of the self When people talk about the resurrection they often assume that the bodies in the afterlife will be perfect. But which version of our bodies gets resurrected--young or old, healthy or sick, real-to-life or idealized? What bodily qualities must be recast in heaven for a body to qualify as both ours and heavenly? The resurrection is one of the foundational statements of Christian theology, but when it comes to the New Testament only a handful of passages helps us answer the question "What will those bodies be like?" More problematically, the selection and interpretation of these texts are grounded in assumptions about the kinds of earthly bodies that are most desirable. Drawing upon previously unexplored evidence in ancient medicine, philosophy, and culture, this illuminating book both revisits central texts--such as the resurrection of Jesus--and mines virtually ignored passages in the Gospels to show how the resurrection of the body addresses larger questions about identity and the self.

Fat: such a little word evokes big responses. While ‘fat’ describes the size and shape of bodies, our negative reactions to corpulent bodies also depend on something tangible and tactile; as this book argues, there is more to fat than meets the eye. Fat: A Cultural History of the Stuff of Life offers a historical reflection on how fat has been perceived and imagined in the West since antiquity. Featuring fascinating historical accounts, philosophical, religious and cultural arguments, including discussions of status, gender and race, the book digs deep into the past for the roots of our current notions and prejudices. Three central themes emerge: how we have perceived and imagined obesity over the centuries; how fat as a substance has elicited disgust and how it evokes perceptions of animality; but also how it has been associated with vitality and fertility. By exploring the complex ways in which fat, fatness and fattening have been perceived over time, this book provides rich insights into the stuff our stereotypes are made of.

Combining your body’s Paleolithic needs with modern nutritional and medical research for complete mind-body wellness • Provides sustainable diet strategies to curb sugar cravings, promote fat burning and weight loss, reduce stress and anxiety, improve sleep and moods, increase energy and immunity, and enhance memory and brain function • Shows how our modern diet leads to weight gain and “diseases of civilization”--such as cancer, osteoporosis, metabolic syndrome, heart disease, and ADD • Explains how diet affects the brain, hormone balance, and the aging process and the crucial role of vitamin D in cancer and disease prevention Examining the healthy lives of our pre-agricultural Paleolithic ancestors and the marked decline in stature, bone density, and dental health and the increase in birth defects, malnutrition, and disease following the implementation of the agricultural lifestyle, Nora Gedgaudas shows how our modern grain- and carbohydrate-heavy low-fat diets are a far cry from the high-fat, moderate-protein hunter-gatherer diets we are genetically programmed for, leading not only to lifelong weight gain but also to cravings, mood disorders, cognitive problems, and “diseases of civilization”--such as cancer, osteoporosis, metabolic syndrome (insulin resistance), heart disease, and mental illness. Applying modern discoveries to the basic hunter-gatherer diet, she culls from vast research in evolutionary physiology, biochemistry, metabolism, nutrition, and chronic and degenerative disease to unveil a holistic lifestyle for true mind-body health and longevity. Revealing the primal origins and physiological basis for a high-fat, moderate-protein, starch-free diet and the importance of adequate omega-3 intake--critical to our brain and nervous system but sorely lacking in most people’s diets--she explains the nutritional problems of grains, gluten, soy, dairy, and starchy vegetables; which natural fats promote health and which (such as canola oil) harm it; the crucial role of vitamin D in cancer and disease prevention; the importance of saturated fat and cholesterol; and how diet affects mental health, memory, cognitive function, hormonal balance, and cellular aging. With step-by-step guidelines, recipes, and meal recommendations, this book offers sustainable strategies for a primally based, yet modern approach to diet and exercise to reduce stress and anxiety, lose weight, improve sleep and mood, increase energy and immunity, enhance brain function, save money on groceries, and live longer and happier.