What's Love Got to Do with It?

In this refreshingly down-to-earth exploration of human mating and sexuality, an acclaimed anthropologist looks at why we fall in love with the people we do. 

"A personal feminist take on the mating game." —Scientific American


An acclaimed anthropologist looks at the fascinating intersection between the imperatives of our glands and genes, and the culture in which we live. Why do we fall in love with the people we do? Is there an alternative, more feminist, way to interpret traditional human sexual biology and evolution? These are but a few of the questions that anthropologist Meredith Small explores in her compelling book on human mating, What's Love Got to Do with It?"Small joins ... such writers as Robert Ardrey, Desmond Morris, and Lionel Tiger who have sought to make evolutionary biology the foundation sexual behavior ... a refreshing rejoinder to the Darwinian boys' club." —San Francisco Chronicle

"An anthropologist's thorough, lucid, nontechnical descriptions of why we mate the way we do." —Playboy

"A personal feminist take on the mating game. [Small] adopts an intimate style [and] succeeds in conveying a flavor of what ... scientific research is all about." —Scientific American

"Lays out the fundamental wiring diagrams of human sexuality ... essential knowledge." —Bill McKibbenMEREDITH SMALL is professor emerita of anthropology at Cornell University and the author of Kids; Our Babies, Ourselves; What's Love Got to Do with It?; Female Choices; and The Culture of Our Discontent. She writes frequently for Natural History Magazine, Discover, and Scientific American, and is a commentator for National Public Radio’s All Things Considered. She lives in Ithaca, New York.