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Nature's Greatest Success
How Plants Evolved to Exploit Humanity
Brief Description
The 15,000-year story of how grass seduced humanity into being its unwitting labour force—and the science behind it. Domesticated crops were not human creations, and agriculture was not simply invented. As Robert N. Spengler shows, domestication was the result of an evolutionary process in which people...
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Nature's Greatest Success
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Description
The 15,000-year story of how grass seduced humanity into being its unwitting labour force—and the science behind it.
Domesticated crops were not human creations, and agriculture was not simply invented. As Robert N. Spengler shows, domestication was the result of an evolutionary process in which people played a role only unwittingly and as actors in a numberless cast that spanned the plant and animal kingdoms. Nature's Greatest Success is the first book to bring together recent scientific discoveries and fascinating ongoing research to provide a systematic account of not only how agriculture really developed but why.
Through fifteen chapters, this book dives deep into the complex processes that drove domestication and the various roles that plants and animals, including humans, played in bringing about those changes. At the intersection of popular history, archaeology, and evolutionary biology, Nature's Greatest Success offers a revolutionary account of humanity not at the apex of nature but deeply embedded in the natural world and the evolutionary processes that continue to guide it even today.
Book Details
INFORMATION
ISBN: 9780520405837
Publisher: University of California Press
Format: Hardback
Date Published: 06 May 2025
Country: United States
Imprint: University of California Press
Illustration: 50 b-w figures, 4 tables
Audience: Tertiary education, Professional and scholarly
DIMENSIONS
Spine width: 46.0mm
Width: 152.0mm
Height: 229.0mm
Weight: 816g
Pages: 512
About the Author
Robert N. Spengler III directs the Fruits of Eurasia: Domestication and Dispersal research project and leads the Domestication and Anthropogenic Evolution Research Group at the Max Planck Institute of Geoanthropology in Jena, Germany. He is author of the book Fruit from the Sands and has published dozens of scholarly articles while running research projects across Central Asia.
Also by Robert N. Spengler
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Fruit from the Sands
"A comprehensive and entertaining historical and botanical review, providing an enjoyable and cognitive read.”—Nature The foods we eat have a deep and often surprising past. From almonds and apples to tea and rice, many foods that we consume today have histories that can be traced out of prehistoric Central Asia along the tracks of the Silk Road to kitchens in...Hardback$6699Unit price /UnavailableAvailableShips in 3-4 weeks -
Fruit from the Sands
"A comprehensive and entertaining historical and botanical review, providing an enjoyable and cognitive read.” — Nature The foods we eat have a deep and often surprising past. From almonds and apples to tea and rice, many foods that we consume today have histories that can be traced out of prehistoric Central Asia along the tracks of the Silk Road to...Paperback$5099Unit price /UnavailableAvailableShips in 3-4 weeks
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