This fascinating, comprehensive look at human evolution raises important questions about what everything from bottle-fed babies to assisted reproduction means for the future of the species. Martin, curator of biological anthropology at the Field Museum in Chicago and a member of the Committee on Evolutionary Biology at the University of Chicago, explains that he consulted more than 5,000 scientific papers and books to “distill the essence” of this vast subject. He succeeds in his stated goal to “maintain accuracy while writing plain English.” (A glossary that defines words such as aspermia, or a complete lack of semen, helps.) And this overview is filled with fascinating facts: it takes a quarter of a billion sperm to fertilize one human egg; apes and monkeys menstruate, but most other mammals don’t; regular sauna use can hurt sperm production because of the heat; fat tissue accounts for more than a pound of a typical seven-and-a-half-pound newborn; crib death is more likely in bottle-fed infants; and breast cancer is less common in nursing moms. A must-read for anyone interested in human evolution. --Karen Springen
Review
I have lectured for years on the topic of this book, and done research on primate reproduction. But even so, I kept coming across information and ideas new to me. The author's knowledge is encyclopedic. From mating, through pregnancy and birth, to baby care, to contraception and its opposite, we get an absorbing account of the evolutionary and functional biology of reproduction. Buy the book! It's a fascinating read, a real romp.”Alexander Harcourt, author of Human Biogeography and coauthor of Gorilla Society
Here at last is a thought-provoking, accurate, and entertaining account of the origins and present status of human reproduction. Robert Martin, a world authority on evolutionary biology, explores how evolution has shaped the patterns of reproductive physiology and the sexual and maternal behavior that characterize modern humans. He accomplishes this task with great clarity and wit.”Alan Dixson, Professor of Biological Sciences, Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand, and author of Sexual Selection and the Origins of Human Mating Systems
Intriguing .... [filled with] interesting factoids.”Washington Post
Misconceptions, cultural taboos, misguided assumptions about gender, and general prudishness have held back research on sex and its influence on the evolution of our species. Robert Martin's How We Do It provides a refreshing account of what we do know about the subject, how we got to this stage of awareness, and where we go next. Starting with an overview of sperm and eggs and ending with birth control and in vitro fertilization, Martin, who has been researching these subjects for decades as curator of biological anthropology at the Field Museum in Chicago, takes off the blinders. He puts human sex into the broad context of the genetic, morphological, and behavioral variation that exists in the animal kingdom.”American Scientist
Biological anthropologist Robert Martin wields decades of research to get at the evolutionary facts and inform people's reproductive decisions.... Fascinating detours aboundsuch as the successful, and sensitive, toilet training of six-month-old babies by Kenya's Digo people.”Nature
A gold mine of cocktail party trivia.... People who are fascinated by humans' past should read this book.”Science News
Robert Martin is one of our leading researchers on human biology and evolution, having made a career of generating novel and game-changing conclusions about why our bodies and organs look the way they do. In How We Do It, he brings his authoritative voice to a compelling, readable, and enlightening account about human reproduction. Read Robert Martin and you will not look at human bodies the same way again.”Neil Shubin, paleontologist, The University of Chicago, and author of Your Inner Fish
How We Do It is a fascinating account of the natural history of human reproduction. As modern medicine and technology increasingly encroach on conception, childbirth, and infant care, it is eye-opening to learn about how these processes actually evolved in our species. Robert Martin has written the perfect birds-and-bees guide for curious grown-ups.”Lise Eliot, Associate Professor of Neuroscience, Chicago Medical School, Rosalind Franklin University, and author of What's Going On In There?: How the Brain and Mind Develop in the First Five Years of Life
"An accessible and affordable, yet rigorously reviewed, scholarly trade book that comes across as a career achievement. Buy it, read it, carefully consider it, and you will be on your way to becoming a cognoscenti in a diversity of fields related to humans and their evolution and reproductive biology.”Evolutionary Psychology
This fascinating, comprehensive look at human evolution raises important questions about what everything from bottle-fed babies to assisted reproduction means for the future of the species.... A must-read for anyone interested in human evolution.”Booklist
A fascinating treatment of a complex subject.”Kirkus Reviews
Martin, an anthropologist and curator at Chicago's Field Museum, covers every aspect of human reproductionfrom fertilization to infant carein this thoughtful, well-written book.... His comparative analysis and expertise permits him to draw compelling conclusions.... He also raises thought-provoking questions, such as why so many spermon the order of 250 billionare released when only one can inseminate the egg.”Publishers Weekly
This is one of the best books about sex, and having babies, you're likely to read.... If you want to know things like why men have nipples or why it takes a quarter of a billion sperm cells to fertilize one human egg, you should take this white-knuckle ride back through evolutionary time, across continents, into science labs and around your most private parts. It will make you laugh. Your jaw will drop. And the sight of the mismatch between the lives we lead and the bodies we live in will start you thinking.”NPR Books
[An] amiable information tour through the evolutionary history of mating, pregnancy, birth, and babies.... An intelligent, open-minded guide to the animal processes that somehow seem to make us most fully human.”Boston Globe
Mr. Martin's humble but crucial acknowledgment that biology is unavoidably complicatedthat we can't capture millennia of evolution or decades of research in glib sayings about the sexes' planetary origins or in single surveys of psychology undergraduatesis what makes How We Do It so compelling.... No Mars and Venus, no extrapolations about why we evolved to loveor hatestrip clubs or whether bottle-feeding dooms a child to a life of puerile amusements and a career at the Kwik-E-Mart. Here instead are the facts of life as you may have never thought about them.”Wall Street Journal
About the Author
Robert Martin is the A. Watson Armour III Curator of Biological Anthropology at the Field Museum in Chicago, as well as a member of the Committee on Evolutionary Biology at the University of Chicago. He was previously on the faculty of University College London, a visiting professor of anthropology at Yale, a visiting professor at the Muséde l'Homme, Paris, and the director of the Anthropological Institute in Zurich.
