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Midtown Scholar Bookstore Podcasts

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Brought to you by one of the nation’s premier independent bookstores, in the heart of Pennsylvania’s capital city. We proudly host national award-winning authors and emerging literary sensations in our weekly book-talk-and-signing series. SIGNED books by featured authors now available at www.MidtownScholar.com

Join us as we celebrate the essential role of literature in contemporary society and engage the region’s vibrant literary and civic community in wide-ranging discussions on books, politics, arts & culture.

“Every Booklover Should Visit” – Travel + Leisure

“Indie bookstore jewel” – Publishers Weekly

Humanimal: How Homo Sapiens became Nature's Most Paradoxical Creatures

 
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Evolutionary theory has long established that humans are animals: Modern Homo sapiens are primates who share an ancestor with monkeys and other great apes. Our genome is 98 percent identical to a chimpanzee’s. And yet we think of ourselves as exceptional. Are we?

In this original and entertaining tour of life on Earth, Adam Rutherford explores the profound paradox of the “human animal.” Looking for answers across the animal kingdom, he finds that many things once considered exclusively human are not: In Australia, raptors have been observed starting fires to scatter prey; in Zambia, a chimp named Julie even started a “fashion” of wearing grass in one ear. We aren’t the only species that communicates, makes tools, or has sex for reasons other than procreation. But we have developed a culture far more complex than any other we’ve observed. Why has that happened, and what does it say about us?

Humanimal is a new evolutionary history—a synthesis of the latest research on genetics, sex, migration, and much more. It reveals what unequivocally makes us animals—and also why we are truly extraordinary.