The Evolution of Beauty

In a major scientific shake-up, Richard Prum presents a stunning reassessment of the most basic questions--What makes animals look like what they do? and Why do they behave as they do?--in evolutionary biology. He shows how female mating preferences have driven much of the peacock's plumage, the spread of the African honey bee across the world, even our own peculiarities: uniquely human traits such as men not just courting women but also urging them to wear their hair long were crafted over millennia by sexual selection.