Sexual Selection and the Descent of Man

Just over one hundred and thirty years ago Charles Darwin, in The Descent of Man and Selection in Relation to Sex (1871), developed remarkably accurate conclusions about man's ancestry, based on a review of general comparative anatomy and psychology in which he regarded sexual selection as a necessary part of the evolutionary process. But the attention of biologists turned to the more general concept of natural selection, in which sexual selection plays a complex role that has been little understood. This volume significantly broadens the scope of modern evolutionary biology by looking at this important and long neglected concept of great importance. In this book, which is the first full discussion of sexual…