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On fertile ground : [a natural history of human reproduction] / Peter T. Ellison.
Penn Museum Library QP251 .E43 2001
Available
LIBRA QP251 .E43 2001
Available from offsite location
- Format:
- Book
- Author/Creator:
- Ellison, Peter Thorpe.
- Language:
- English
- Subjects (All):
- Human reproduction.
- Human evolution.
- Natural selection.
- Physical Description:
- 358 pages : illustrations ; 23 cm
- Place of Publication:
- Cambridge, Mass. ; London : Harvard University Press, 2001.
- Summary:
- Reproduction is among the most basic of human biological functions, both for our distant ancestors and for ourselves, whether we live on the plains of Africa or in North American suburbs. Our reproductive biology unites us as a species, but it has also been an important engine of our evolution. In the way our bodies function today, we can see both the imprint of our formative past and implications for our future. It is the infinitely subtle and endlessly dramatic story of human reproduction and its evolutionary context that Peter T. Ellison tells in On Fertile Ground.
- Ranging from the latest achievements of modern fertility clinics to the lives of subsistence farmers in the rain forests of Africa, this book offers both a remarkably broad and a minutely detailed exploration of human reproduction. Peter Ellison, a leading pioneer in the field, combines the perspectives of anthropology, stressing the range and variation of human experience; ecology, sensitive to the two-way interactions between humans and their environments; and evolutionary biology, emphasizing a functional understanding of human reproductive biology and its role in our evolutionary history.
- Whether contrasting female athletes missing their periods with Polish farm women, comparing male athletes using anabolic steroids with hunter-gatherers in Paraguay, or exploring the intricate choreography of an implanting embryo or of a nursing mother and her child, On Fertile Ground advances a rich and deeply satisfying explanation of the mechanisms by which we reproduce and the evolutionary forces behind their design.
- Contents:
- Two Births 1
- Surviving the First Cut 17
- A Time to Be Born 51
- The Elixir of Life 81
- Why Grow Up? 127
- Balancing Act 165
- The Arc of Life 215
- The Body Builders 249
- The Journey and the Procession 281.
- Notes:
- Subtitle from cover.
- Includes bibliographical references and index.
- Local Notes:
- Acquired for the Penn Libraries with assistance from the George Clapp Vaillant Book Fund.
- ISBN:
- 0674004639
- 0674011120
- OCLC:
- 51738594
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