Promotional Information

Part of the Science Masters series - bringing together some of the world's finest scientists to explore and explain the key ideas in contemporary science Sexual behaviour is a subject of eternal interest Jared Diamond has proved himself an outstanding populariser of science. He is also an eminent professor, based at UCLA He won the Pulitzer Prize for General Non-fiction The Rise and Fall of the Third Chimpanzee and Guns, Germs and Steel were acclaimed bestsellers 'Jared Diamond is the finest of the essayists in evolutionary biology by combination of originality, breadth and sheer authority based on personal experience' Edward O Wilson 'Why Is Sex Fun? is the best book on the subject I've read. This lively exploration of our sexual heritage offers fascinating reading for anyone curious about why lovers do what they do' Diane Ackerman

About the Author

Jared Diamond is Professor of Physiology at the Medical School of the University of California, Los Angeles. Trained in phsyiology, he later took up the study of ecology and has made fundamental contributions to both disciplines. He is a member of the US National Academy of Sciences and the author of The Rise and Fall of the Third Chimpanzee (which won the British Science Book Prize in 1992) and Guns, Germs and Steel: A Short History of Everybody for the last 13,000 Years, also a winner in 1998. Emilia Fox, born in 1974, is the daughter of actors Edward Fox and Joanna David. She appeared in the BBC dramas Pride and Prejudice, Rebecca, Shooting the Past and David Copperfield.

Reviews

This book speculates on the evolutionary forces that shaped the unique aspects of human sexuality: female menopause, males' role in society, having sex in private, and‘most unusual of all‘having sex for fun instead of for procreation. Through comparative evolution, biologist and science author Diamond (Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fate of Human Societies, LJ 2/15/97), poses credible and thought-provoking yet entertaining factors: the lengthy period of dependency of human infants, sex for pleasure as the tie that helps bind a mother and a father together, and menopause as an evolutionary advantage that, by ending the childbearing years, allows females to pass wisdom and knowledge on to society and succeeding generations. Recommended for most libraries.‘Gloria Maxwell, Kansas City P.L., Kan.