Customer Reviews

A Natural History of Families

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I bought this book for a graduate level behavior class ay my university and I was impressed. At first, I was skeptical of the writing style after being used to reading labs but I was hooked once I got into it. The writing level is easily understandable yet remains intelligent. Also the author draws fantastic comparisons to history and pop culture to relate to all readers.

This book examines the different modes of reproduction and different types of family structures in the natural world, with an emphasis on vertebrates, especially birds and mammals. The goal is to see how different behavioral patterns and reproductive modes found in different species help to further the evolutionary survival of each species. The book examines this topic from multiple standpoints such as genetics, phenotypes, embryology, ecology, statistics, and common sense. The title of the book is a misnomer as there is little history in that the author does not examine extinct species, but only presently occurring species. The author also concentrates on how things exist now, and does not delve deep into how breeding patterns, courtship rituals, family structures and other issues related to sexual reproduction evolved over time.

The book repeats many points over and over again, which though tedious, makes the text helpful for the novice reader. This repetition also provides smooth transitions from one chapter to the next. As a book based on science, there is a lot of references to scientific literature, which is good. There are also sufficient diagrams, which is good. The book should have included more examples from non-vertebrates, such as invertebrates, plants, and maybe even fungi, if examples are possible. Overall, an interesting read.