A Hunter-Gatherer’s
Guide to the 21st Century
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER
A bold, provocative history of our species finds the roots of civilization's success and failure in our evolutionary biology.
We are living through the most prosperous age in all of human history, yet people are more listless, divided and miserable than ever. Wealth and comfort are unparalleled, and yet our political landscape grows ever more toxic, and rates of suicide, loneliness, and chronic illness continue to skyrocket. How do we explain the gap between these two truths? What's more, what can we do to close it?
For evolutionary biologists Heather Heying and Bret Weinstein, the cause of our woes is clear: the modern world is out of sync with our ancient brains and bodies. We evolved to live in clans, but today most people don't even know their neighbors' names. Survival in our earliest societies depended on leveraging the advantages of our sex differences, but today even the concept of biological sex is increasingly dismissed as offensive.
The cognitive dissonance spawned by trying to live in a society we're not built for is killing us.
Inside the Book
In A Hunter-Gatherer’s Guide to the 21st Century, Heying and Weinstein cut through the politically fraught discourse surrounding issues like sex, gender, diet, parenting, sleep, education, and more to outline a science-based worldview that will empower you to live a better, wiser life.
They distill more than 20 years of research and first-hand accounts from the most biodiverse ecosystems on Earth into straightforward principles and guidance for confronting our culture of hyper-novelty.
“Profound view of
human nature”
“Husband and wife team Bret Weinstein and Heather Heying bring their vast knowledge of evolutionary biology to bear on the problems that beset us. Wide-ranging and illuminating, A Hunter-Gatherer’s Guide to the 21st Century posits an intriguing, surprising, and profound view of human nature.”
JORDAN B. PETERSON
Author of Beyond Order, 12 Rules for Life and Maps of Meaning
MEET THE AUTHORS
Heather Heying and Bret Weinstein are evolutionary biologists who have been invited to address the US Congress, the Department of Justice, and the Department of Education, and have spoken before audiences across the globe.
They both earned PhDs in Biology from the University of Michigan, where their research on evolution and adaptation earned awards for its quality and innovation. They cohost weekly livestreams of the DarkHorse podcast.
“A bold, well-researched and succinct exploration”
“I have never read such a bold, well-researched, and succinct exploration of the puzzling predicament we find ourselves in. Anyone who wonders why the most comfortable society in history—our own—has such astronomical rates of depression, anxiety and poor health will find abundant answers in A Hunter-Gatherer’s Guide to the 21st Century.”
SEBASTIAN JUNGER
Author of War, Tribe and Freedom