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lizwisniewski's review against another edition
4.0
I found this book very interesting and very readable - the writers are funny and personable. It was fun to read something different - animal biology and it gave me a lot of things to think about.
kmoses87's review against another edition
1.0
To be fair to my review, I only read to page 40 when I decided I was too bored with reading it and gave up. It was very detailed into the biology of many different species, and very early on made the point that monogamy is generally not a natural thing. However there were two points that I felt were lacking: with all the biological reasons for EPC (extra pair coupling) there was no mention (at least that I had seen yet) as to why monogamy isn't natural for lgbt couples, also, there was a consistent focus on the way humans have EPCs being cheating on your spouse rather than consensual open relationships.
silpol's review against another edition
4.0
this book goes around of (not only) human extra-marital sexual relationships from perspective of biology and games theory. authors dare to ignore completely social prescriptions of modern modelled-after-religion society (like monogamy as the natural character of human being) and help you to see it from the angle of science not blinded by morality & church. this book _will_ put you in questioning moral basics of your own, and unless you are sanctimonious churchgoer and/or hypocrite, your point of view will change significantly.
crispymerola's review against another edition
3.0
Fascinating info marred by some chunky sentences and limited scope.
The authors explore and define the concept of monogamy in the animal world, then work their way towards what this means for human beings. The two keep things light and charming, though their sentence structure is exhausting at points. I enjoyed the even-handed analysis on display; a lot of evidence is presented, a lot of counter arguments are considered, and the authors aren't afraid to make claims at the end of it all.
Monogamy as a concept is so interesting to me, and it's analyzed incredibly well here from a biological standpoint. On the psychological/sociological front, we are rarely treated to more than a few quotes from prominent figures to sum up the canon of Western thought. I wish we could have seen more data on monogamy in practice, including open relationships, gay monogamy, and so on. Perhaps the world just didn't have the data at the time this was written.
Either way, the prime biological info makes this a great read on monogamy, though it isn't THE read because of the aforementioned issues.
The authors explore and define the concept of monogamy in the animal world, then work their way towards what this means for human beings. The two keep things light and charming, though their sentence structure is exhausting at points. I enjoyed the even-handed analysis on display; a lot of evidence is presented, a lot of counter arguments are considered, and the authors aren't afraid to make claims at the end of it all.
Monogamy as a concept is so interesting to me, and it's analyzed incredibly well here from a biological standpoint. On the psychological/sociological front, we are rarely treated to more than a few quotes from prominent figures to sum up the canon of Western thought. I wish we could have seen more data on monogamy in practice, including open relationships, gay monogamy, and so on. Perhaps the world just didn't have the data at the time this was written.
Either way, the prime biological info makes this a great read on monogamy, though it isn't THE read because of the aforementioned issues.
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