On Fertile Ground : A Natural History of Human Reproduction / Peter T. Ellison.
2022
QP251 ǂb E43 2001eb
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Title
On Fertile Ground : A Natural History of Human Reproduction / Peter T. Ellison.
Author
ISBN
9780674036444
Published
Cambridge, MA : Harvard University Press, [2022]
Copyright
©2003
Language
English
Language Note
In English.
Description
1 online resource (368 p.)
Item Number
10.4159/9780674036444 doi
Call Number
QP251 ǂb E43 2001eb
Dewey Decimal Classification
612.6009
Summary
Reproduction is among the most basic of human biological functions, both for our distant ancestors and for ourselves, whether we live on the plains of Africa or in North American suburbs. Our reproductive biology unites us as a species, but it has also been an important engine of our evolution. In the way our bodies function today we can see both the imprint of our formative past and implications for our future. It is the infinitely subtle and endlessly dramatic story of human reproduction and its evolutionary context that Peter T. Ellison tells in On Fertile Ground. Ranging from the latest achievements of modern fertility clinics to the lives of subsistence farmers in the rain forests of Africa, this book offers both a remarkably broad and a minutely detailed exploration of human reproduction. Ellison, a leading pioneer in the field, combines the perspectives of anthropology, stressing the range and variation of human experience; ecology, sensitive to the two-way interactions between humans and their environments; and evolutionary biology, emphasizing a functional understanding of human reproductive biology and its role in our evolutionary history. Whether contrasting female athletes missing their periods and male athletes using anabolic steroids with Polish farm women and hunter-gatherers in Paraguay, or exploring the intricate choreography of an implanting embryo or of a nursing mother and her child, On Fertile Ground advances a rich and deeply satisfying explanation of the mechanisms by which we reproduce and the evolutionary forces behind their design.
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Access limited to authorized users.
System Details Note
Mode of access: Internet via World Wide Web.
Digital File Characteristics
text file PDF
Source of Description
Description based on online resource; title from PDF title page (publisher's Web site, viewed 31. Jan 2022)
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Table of Contents
Frontmatter
CONTENTS
TWO BIRTHS
SURVIVING THE FIRST CUT
A TIME TO BE BORN
THE ELIXIR OF LIFE
WHY GROW UP?
BALANCING ACT
THE ARC OF LIFE
THE BODY BUILDERS
THE JOURNEY AND THE PROCESSION
NOTES
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
INDEX
CONTENTS
TWO BIRTHS
SURVIVING THE FIRST CUT
A TIME TO BE BORN
THE ELIXIR OF LIFE
WHY GROW UP?
BALANCING ACT
THE ARC OF LIFE
THE BODY BUILDERS
THE JOURNEY AND THE PROCESSION
NOTES
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
INDEX