Humans are a uniquely capable species of ape. Our brains are vastly complex and our bodies are engineering marvels. We transmit knowledge from one generation to the next, so our capabilities have accumulated over time.
But we're also deeply, inescapably flawed. Our children are born extremely vulnerable. We are prone to diseases. And we're riddled with psychological biases and defects in our genetics and biochemistry.
Being Human reveals how our fundamental physical nature has expressed itself in shaping our cultures, societies and the whole course of our story. How have our biological abilities and flaws shaped our past? How have they both moulded long-term trends across millennia of human history and influenced particular era-defining events?
Once we recast our past in terms of the capabilities and constraints of the human body, we perceive it with fresh new eyes. We see how endemic diseases wrecked Napoleon's dream of a global empire; how a defunct gene led to the emergence of the Mafia; and why Columbus refused to believe that he had discovered America.
The most important influence on the course of our history is human biology.
