Books

The material listed here consists of a list of books, in chronological order, related directly or indirectly to evolutionary (Darwinian) medicine. The level is mixed – some books (denoted by [G]) will appeal to the general reader, others (denoted by [S]) have a more specialist appeal. Not all are in complete agreement with each other.

A separate list, mainly articles of a more specialist interest, is available here.

  • Morgan, E. (1991). The Scars of Evolution: What our bodies tell us about human origins. Harmondsworth: Penguin. [G]

  • Ewald, P. (1994). Evolution of Infectious Diseases. Oxford: Oxford University Press. [S]

  • Lappé, M. (1994). Evolutionary Medicine - Rethinking the origins of disease. San Francisco: Sierra Club Books. [G]

  • Nesse, R., & Williams, G. (1994). Why We Get Sick - The new science of Darwinian medicine. New York: Times Books. [G]

  • Nesse, R., & Williams, G. (1995). Evolution and Healing - The new science of Darwinian medicine. London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson. [G]

  • Stearns, S. (Ed.). (1999). Evolution in Health and Disease. Oxford: Oxford University Press. [S]

  • Trevathan, W., Smith, E., & McKenna, J. (Eds.). (1999). Evolutionary Medicine. New York: Oxford University Press. [S]

  • Boaz, N. (2002). Evolving Health: The origins of illness and how the modern world is making us sick. New York: John Wiley & Sons, Inc. [G]

    • Chapter 1 of this book is available to view online [See].

  • Trevathan, W., Smith, E., & McKenna, J. (Eds.). (2008). Current Perspectives in Evolutionary Medicine. New York: Oxford University Press. [S]

  • Gluckman, P., Beedle, A. & Hanson, M. (2009). Principles of Evolutionary Medicine. Oxford:Oxford University Press. [S]

  • Estabrooks, G. (1941). Man, The Mechanical Misfit. New York: Macmillan.

    • BEWARE - This book has a strong eugenicist bias which is NOT typical or representative of evolutionary (Darwinian) medicine in general. It does, however, introduce some ideas about mankind's imperfections.

Books which, although they focus on animals, using the type of thinking that is found in evolutionary medicine:

  • Engel, C. (2003). Wild Health: How Animals Keep Themselves Well and What We Can Learn from Them. Phoenix: London. [G]

  • Natterson-Horowitz, B. & Bowers, K. (2012). Zoobiquity: What Animals Can Teach Us about Health and the Science of Healing. New York: Knopf Publishing Group/London: Virgin. [G] (Zoobiquity Website)