The Red Queen: Sex and the Evolution of Human Nature

Referring to Lewis Carroll's <em>Red Queen</em> from <em>Through the Looking-Glass</em>, a character who has to keep running to stay in the same place, Matt Ridley demonstrates why sex is humanity's best strategy for outwitting its constantly mutating internal predators. <em>The Red Queen</em> answers dozens of other riddles of human nature and culture -- including why men propose marriage, the method behind our maddening notions of beauty, and the disquieting fact that a woman is more likely to conceive a child by an adulterous lover than by her husband. Brilliantly written, <em>The Red Queen</em> offers an extraordinary new way of interpreting the human condition and how it has evolved.