Author(s): Cat Bohannon

Feminism | Women's Histories | Evolution | 2024 Women's Prize for Non-Fiction

An ambitious, eye-opening, myth-busting and groundbreaking history of the evolution of the female body, by a brilliant new scientist and writer.

How did wet nurses drive civilization? Are women always the weaker sex? Is sexism useful for evolution? And are our bodies at war with our babies?

In Eve, Cat Bohannon answers questions scientists should have been addressing for decades. With boundless curiosity and sharp wit, she covers the past 200 million years to explain the specific science behind the development of the female sex.

Eve is not only a sweeping revision of human history, it's an urgent and necessary corrective for a world that has focused primarily on the male body for far too long. Bohannon's findings, including everything from the way C-sections in the industrialized world are rearranging women's pelvic shape to the surprising similarities between pus and breast milk, will completely change what you think you know about evolution and why Homo sapiens have become such a successful and dominant species, from tool use to city building to the development of language.

Review: A smart, funny, scientific deep-dive into the power of a woman's body, Eve surprises, educates, and emboldens. Who runs the world? Girls! -- Bonnie Garmus, author of LESSONS IN CHEMISTRY
Such a rare book: scholarly, funny, accessible and very important. A truly original history of humans that explains so much of who we are today -- Chris van Tulleken, author of ULTRA-PROCESSED PEOPLE
Utterly fascinating. This book should revolutionise our understanding of human life. It is set to become a classic -- George Monbiot, author of REGENESIS
Eve was immeasurably useful to me in my life-long quest to understand my own body. I highly recommend it to anyone who is on the same journey. -- Hope Jahren, author of LAB GIRL and STORY OF MORE
Why do women live longer than men? Why are women more likely to get Alzheimer's? And what is it with this damn menopause? Ten years in the writing, this triumph of rigor and accessibility by a Columbia University researcher is a myth-busting look at how the female body has driven evolution over the past 200 million years, continuing to shape all our lives today. In short it's a brilliant book about "breasts, and blood, and fat, and vaginas, and wombs...how they came to be and how we live with them now, no matter how weird or hilarious the truth is." -- Caroline Sanderson * The Bookseller, Editor's Choice *

Author Biography: Cat Bohannon is a researcher and author with a PhD from Columbia University in the evolution of narrative and cognition. Her essays and poems have appeared in Scientific American, Mind, Science Magazine, The Best American Nonrequired Reading, The Georgia Review, The Story Collider and Poets Against the War. She lives in the US with her partner and two offspring.