- Follow Reading Freely on WordPress.com
Reading Now
-
Recent Posts
Categories
Blogroll
- Seeking a Little Truth
- Inspire Virtue
- Classics Considered
- With Freedom, Books, Flowers, and the Moon
- The Inquisitive Biologist
- Relevant Obscurity
- Trek Lit Reviews
- Stoic Meditations
- A Pilgrim in Narnia
- Mudpuddle Soup
- Gently Mad
- The Frugal Chariot
- The Social Porcupine
- Gifted w/Thought
- Lydia Schoch
- The Classics Club
- Classical Carousel
- Fanda Classiclit
- Reading In Between the Life
Archives
Meta
Tag Archives: anthropology
Of Darwin, dinosaurs, and Denisovians
I expect to leave the recovery-suite of the hotel at the end of this week and eturn home, though I’ll be returning to Birmingham every two weeks for checkups for the next few months. During this multiweek siesta, I’ve mostly … Continue reading
Posted in Reviews, science
Tagged anthropology, cities, cosmology, evolution, livin la vida anthropocene, natural history, science
8 Comments
Studying naked people
The Naked Woman: A Study of the Female Body © 2005 Desmond MorrisThe Naked Man: A Study of the Male Body © 2009 Desmond Morris Years ago I read Desmond Morris’ The Naked Ape, an anthropological look at humanity. In scrutinizing human beings’ animal … Continue reading
Posted in Reviews, science
Tagged anthropology, biology, Of Boys and Men, sexuality, women
5 Comments
Of anthropology, Solzhenitsyn, and a return to the gulag archipelago
If I’ve been quiet as of late, I’ve been bedridden with a severe sinus infection, one that came with headaches so severe that I couldn’t even use my four days off of work to read. Yesterday was the first day … Continue reading
Posted in Classics and Literary, Reviews, science
Tagged anthropology, biography, Joseph Pearce, Russia, Russian Literature, science
4 Comments
Of Mars, Antarctica, and the human condition
Mars is a cold tease, an object of immediate interest to anyone who believes humanity needs to continue to venture outward. It’s neither so hostile or so far from us to preclude manned missions entirely, and it has its own resources that … Continue reading
Posted in Reviews, science
Tagged anthropology, Astronomy, evolution, geology, natural history, Nature, science
4 Comments
Conspiracies and other stories that make us human
Early last week I read Brian Dunning’s Conspiracies Declassified: The Skeptoid Guide to the Truth Behind the Theories. I used to listen to Skeptoid over a decade ago, enjoying Dunning’s research into the facts behind popular theories and unsolved mysteries. … Continue reading
The Goodness Paradox
The Goodness Paradox: The Strange Relationship Between Virtue and Violence in Human Evolution © 2019 Richard Wrangham 400 pages The Goodness Paradox cannot help but be fascinating, for it seeks to address one of the most pressing questions of human … Continue reading
Why is Sex Fun?
Why is Sex Fun? The Evolution of Human Sexuality © 1997 Jared Diamond 172 pages Why is Sex Fun is a provocatively titled, slim volume on the evolution of human sexuality. Diamond never addresses the titular question, though, instead evaluating … Continue reading
Of Neanderthals and dogs and extinction level events
Time for science short rounds! Last week I read The Invaders, a much-anticipated work about how dogs gave humans a competitive edge over their neanderthal cousins. This brief book posits that human beings function like invasive species, and after establishing … Continue reading
Sapiens
Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind443 pages© 2014 Yuval Noah Harari In Sapiens, Yuval Harari presents a natural history of the human race from its flowering across Eurasia to a worried reflection on the prospects of of technohumanism. The book’s … Continue reading