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How 500 Million Years of Sex, Gender, and Mating Shape Modern Relationships
by Nathan H. Lents
An Immense World meets Sex at Dawn in this fascinating exploration of sexual behavior throughout the animal kingdom, as evolutionary biologist Nathan H. Lents argues persuasively that many of our supposedly modern ideas about gender and human sexuality are, in fact, deeply rooted in our animal ancestors.
Evolutionary biologist Nathan H. Lents knows what makes humans unique—and it's most definitely not our sexual diversity. A professor at John Jay College, Lents has spent his career studying what makes us, well, us, and contrary to what the culture warriors want people to believe—diverse sexual behavior is not a new development, or even a human one. It didn't just emerge from a progressive culture; it's the product of billions of years of evolutionary experimentation throughout the animal kingdom. It's not a modern story, a Florida story, or even a human story. It's a biological story.
In The Sexual Evolution, Lents takes readers on a journey through the animal world, from insects to apes, revealing what the incredible array of sexual diversity can teach us about our own diverse beauty. Nature, it turns out, has made a lot of space for diverse genders and sexual behaviors. And why? Because when it comes to evolution—diversity wins. This is not just a political or social message, instead it's rooted in science and cultivated from understanding the full breadth of sexuality that exists throughout the world.
With shades of both Frans de Waal and Esther Perel, Lents's storytelling is as fascinating as it is topical, offering eye-opening stories about the diversity of animal life, while relating it to our own sexual journey as a species. At once a forceful rebuttal to bigotry and a captivating dive into the secret sex lives of animals, The Sexual Evolution is the rare book of pop science that leans into the controversy. Sex, the reactionaries say, should only be for procreation between a man and a woman, anything else goes against nature. Well, nature would like a word with them.
"Enthralling ... Lents gleefully tears down cis, hetero, and monogamous norms, outlining surprising case studies that give the lie to restrictive conceptions of gender and sex. The result is an indispensable glimpse into the queerness of animals." —Publishers Weekly (starred review)
"Destined to be a go-to source in future sex and gender debates." —Kirkus Reviews
"In this multilayered exploration of gender biology, The Sexual Evolution, Nathan Lents takes us on a wonderfully thoughtful journey through some of today's most challenging scientific terrain. The result is a book that expertly balances the complexity of the issues and the compassion needed to navigate them, in other words, exactly the kind of guide to the subject that we all need today." —Deborah Blum, Pulitzer-prize winning author of The Poison Squad: One Chemist's Single-Minded Crusade for Food Safety at the Turn of the 20th Century
"A lot of people seem to think they know what science says when it comes to sex. Well, Nathan Lents has news for them. Read this book—it's fascinating, charming, and eye-opening, with lovely ink drawings that bring the animals in its pages to life. It dispels misconceptions about life in the animal kingdom and our place in it, but most importantly it shows clearly that nature's beautiful sexual diversity extends to all living things—especially humans." —Joan Roughgarden, Professor Emerita of Biology, Stanford University, author of Evolution's Rainbow and The Genial Gene
This information about The Sexual Evolution was first featured
in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.
Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.
Nathan H. Lents is a professor of biology at John Jay College, CUNY, and the author of Not So Different: Finding Human Nature in Animals. He has appeared as a scientific expert in a range of national media, including The TODAY Show, NPR, Access Hollywood, 48 Hours, and Al Jazeera America. He lives in Queens, NY.
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