Maternal instinct--the all-consuming, utterly selfless love that mothers lavish on their children--has long been assumed to be an innate, indeed defining element of a woman's nature. But is it? In this provocative, groundbreaking book, renowned anthropologist (and mother) Sarah Blaffer Hrdy shares a radical new vision of motherhood and its crucial role in human evolution.

Hrdy strips away stereotypes and gender-biased myths to demonstrate that traditional views of maternal behavior are essentially wishful thinking codified as objective observation. As Hrdy argues, far from being "selfless," successful primate mothers have always combined nurturing with ambition, mother love with sexual love, ambivalence with devotion. In fact all mothers, in the struggle to guarantee both their own survival and that of their offspring, deal nimbly with competing demands and conflicting strategies.

In her nuanced, stunningly original interpretation of the relationships between mothers and fathers, mothers and babies, and mothers and their social groups, Hrdy offers not only a revolutionary new meaning to motherhood but an important new understanding of human evolution. Written with grace and clarity, suffused with the wisdom of a long and distinguished career, Mother Nature is a profound contribution to our understanding of who we are as a species--and why we have become this way.

作者簡介

莎拉•布萊弗•赫迪（Sarah Blaffer Hrdy）

一九六九年畢業於萊德克里夫學院（Radcliffe College），畢業論文是探討心理適應如何、且為何影響人類創造幻想的妖魔。這篇論文後來出版，書名為《奇納坎坦的黑人：一個中美洲傳說》（The Black-man of Zinacantan: A Central American Legend）。

赫迪是科班出身的人類學家，轉而對靈長目動物的社會學產生興趣。為了研究一種猴類雄性的殺嬰行為，進入哈佛大學研究所，於一九七五年獲得博士學位，論文以《印度黑面長尾猴的兩性生殖策略》（The Langurs of Abu: Female and Male Strategies of Adaptation）為書名出版，成為第一部從社會學角度分析靈長目動物兩性對立的研究。

多年來，赫迪發表作品甚多。《紐約時報》曾將她的《從未進化的女性》（The Woman That Never Evolved）列入一九八一年的重要書目。本書詳論雌性靈長目動物如何成為適應策略的主動者，有競爭性，而且在性的方面有自我主張。一九八四年間，她發表《殺嬰行為：比較的與進化的視角》（Infanticide: Comparative and Evolutionary Perspectives），獲選為當年的傑出學術著作。 她擔任「人類行為基金會」書籍系列主編多年，至今仍任職《美國靈長目動物學、演化人類學、人性期刊》（The American Journal of Primatology, Evolutionary Anthropology, and Human Nature）的編輯委員。她於一九九六年辭去加州大學戴維斯分校教職，與家人居住加州北部，從事棲地重建，並兼農作。

《母性》是赫迪一九九九年發表的鉅作，是她最暢銷的一本書，被《出版者周刊》（Publishres Weekly）