
The Origin and Evolution of Cultures
Published on 10. February 2005
Book
Paperback/Softback
464 pages
978-0-19-518145-6 (ISBN)
Description
Over the past 25 years, Boyd and Richerson have become well-known across a wide range of disciplines for their path-breaking work on evolution and culture. This work collects twenty of the influential but relatively inaccessible published articels that form the backbone of this research. It could not be more timely given the growing influence of evolutionary psychology. The papers - which were published in a diverse set of journals and which are not easily available - a conceptually linked and form a cohesive, unified evolutionary account of human culture. Their interdisciplinary research is based on two notions. First, that culture is crucial for understanding human behavior: unlike other organism, socially transmitted beliefs, attitudes and values heavily influence our behavior. Secondly, culture is part of biology: the capacity to acquire and transmit culture is a derived component of human psychology, and the contents of culture are deeply intertwined with our biology. Taking off from these two assumptions, Boyd and Richerson's novel idea is that culture is a pool of information, stored in the brains of a population, that gets transmitted from one brain to another by social learning processes. Among their conclusions: culture can account for both our astounding ecological success as well as the maladaptations that characterize much of human behavior. Interest in Boyd and Richerson's work spans anthropology, psychology, economics, philosophy, and political science, and has influenced work on animal behavior, economics and game theory, memes, and even archaeology.
Reviews / Votes
There is much to learn from the work of Boyd and Richerson, and the initiative to bring together some of their scattered papers in this volume is laudable. Many professional anthrologists, biologists, philosophers and psychologists interested in the study of culture and the evolution of mind and behavior will benefit from it. MetapsychologyMore details
Series
Language
English
Place of publication
New York
United States
Target group
Professional and scholarly
Illustrations
numerous line drawings, graphs and mathematical equations
Dimensions
Height: 229 mm
Width: 152 mm
Thickness: 27 mm
Weight
754 gr
ISBN-13
978-0-19-518145-6 (9780195181456)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Other editions
Additional editions

Robert Boyd | Peter J. Richerson
The Origin and Evolution of Cultures
E-Book
01/2005
1st Edition
OUP eBook
€37.49
Available for download

Robert Boyd | Peter J. Richerson
The Origin and Evolution of Cultures
E-Book
01/2005
1st Edition
OUP eBook
€37.49
Available for download