Daily Bookshot: Amidst the Embers

Amidst the Embers, originally uploaded by Robert Burdock.

Profile Books are at it again with their oh so covetable book covers. This time it’s the recently published Catching Fire: How Humans Made Us Cook by Richard Wrangham, with cover design by David Wardle.

But it’s not just the cover that makes Catching Fire so attractive of course. It’s the promise of something completely original and utterly absorbing. Richard Wrangham is the Ruth Moore Professor of Biological Anthropology at Harvard University and Curator of Primate Behavioural Biology at the Peabody Museum, and he’s come up with an interesting theory – that cooking is the act that transformed us from our apelike roots into our human form of today. There’s nothing better than a well-considered synopsis to explain complicated things a better than I ever could. So here’s the cover blurb:

Ever since Darwin and the Descent of Man, the existence of humans has been attributed to our intelligence and adaptability. But Catching Fire presents a groundbreaking new theory of origins: that cooking is the reason for our evolutionary success; shifting from raw to cooked foods was key in human evolution. More than language, emotional intelligence, or the opposable thumb, the mastery of fire created us.

Once our ancestors began cooking their food, the human digestive tract began to shrink and the brain to grow. Time once spent chewing tough raw food could be used instead to hunt and to tend camp. Cooking became the basis for pair bonding and marriage, created the household and even led to a sexual division on labour.

Tracing the contemporary implications of our ancestor’s diets, Catching Fire sheds new light on how we came to be the social, intelligent, and sexual species we are today. A stunningly original theory of human evolution, Catching Fire will provoke controversy and captivate anyone interested in our ancient origins – or in our modern eating habits.

So what do you all think? I for one think Catching Fire has the potential to be a really fascinating read – provided Professor Wrangham doesn’t get too ‘professor-ey’

I showed Catching Fire to Mrs. Rob and she remarked that some of us are still a little too apelike for our own good. I couldn’t work out what she meant by that

I’ll be back at some point to let you know how I get on with Catching Fire. Until then Happy cooking!

Profile Books | September 2009 | £15.00 | PAPERBACK | 320 PP | ISBN: 9781846682858