The Red Queen: Sex and the Evolution of Human Nature

“A terrific book, witty and lucid, and brimming with provocative conjectures.” (Wall Street Journal) from the author of the acclaimed New York Times bestseller Genome

Brilliantly written, The Red Queen compels us to rethink everything from the persistence of sexism to the endurance of romantic love.

Referring to Lewis Carroll's Red Queen from Through the Looking-Glass, 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. The Red Queen 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. The Red Queen offers an extraordinary new way of interpreting the human condition and how it has evolved.

Referring to Lewis Carroll's Red Queen from Through the Looking-Glass, 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. The Red Queen 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, The Red Queen offers an extraordinary new way of interpreting the human condition and how it has evolved.

“Ridley’s The Red Queen is . . . literary and witty. He has the tone of a jolly schoolmaster who wants to share with you the neat things he’s read.” - Boston Globe

“Matt Ridley is more concerned with clarity of explanation, elegance of style, and simple honest truth than he is with yawn-inducing canons of political correctness, and his book is consequently a breath of fresh air.” - Richard Dawkins, author of THE SELFISH GENE

“A terrific book, witty and lucid, and brimming with provocative conjectures.” - Wall Street Journal

Excellent, lively . . . stuffed with odd and vivid examples. . . . Ridley is [an] elegant writer who never obscures his argument with jargon.” - Long Island Newsday