Why Men?: A Human History of Violence and Inequality

Are war and inequality inevitable, because evolution made men competitive and dominant?Think again with this entertaining yet powerful new history of ‘true’ human nature. How did humans, a species that evolved to be cooperative and egalitarian, develop societies of enforced inequality?Why did our ancestors create patriarchal power and warfare?Did it have to be this way?Elites have always called hierarchy and violence unavoidable facts of human nature.Evolution, they claim, has caused men to fight, and people-starting with men and women-to have separate, unequal roles.But that is bad science. Why Men? tells a smarter story of humanity, from early behaviours to contemporary cultures.From bonobo sex and prehistoric childcare to human sacrifice, Joan of Arc, Darwinism and Abu Ghraib, this fascinating, fun and important book reveals that humans adapted to live equally, yet the earliest class societies suppressed this with invented ideas of difference.Ever since, these distortions have cause