Reviews

Advance Praise for Survival of the Prettiest:
"Sparkling prose, dazzling insights on a subject which inherently attracts us, make this scientific page-turner irresistible."
--Paul Ekman, Professor, University of California, San Francisco
"Although I did not enjoy being called a 'genetic freak, ' I did find Nancy Etcoff's book thought-provoking and a good read--yes, we can read too. Her writings explore the existence of aesthetic beauty, without placing judgments upon it. Rather, she looks at our reaction to it."
--Cindy Crawford
"Erudite, pithy, witty, and indeed beautiful, Nancy Etcoff's prose brings sense at last to the study of beauty. She demonstrates that beauty evolved in the brain of the beholder and the body of the beheld for fascinating evolutionary reasons."
--Matt Ridley, author of The Origins of Virtue and The Red Queen
"Forget the myths about beauty; it isn't skin-deep, or in the eye of the beholder, or 'culturally constructed.' Our notion of beauty is ancient and universal, embedded in our genes--a Stone Age body scan brimming with information about health and fertility. Nancy Etcoff provides a lucid, authoritative guide to these latest insights of Darwinian science. At last, a book about beauty that won't go out of fashion."
--Helena Cronin, London School of Economics, author of The Ant and the Peacock
"In this fascinating book, Nancy Etcoff makes a compelling argument that our fascination with beauty has deep roots in our genes. As a pioneer in this cutting-edge field, she writes with authority, clarity, and no little wit." --Dean Hamer, National Cancer Institute, author of Living with Our Genes and The Science of Desire
"Nancy Etcoffdeftly and fatally skewers one of the most enduring pretensions of the intellectual class: that beauty is only a cultural artifact, a distraction and temptation for weaker minds. With volumes of hard data and loads of humor, she shows that the experience of beauty is on a par with that of hunger or pain--an evolutionary adaptation complete with universal attributes and interesting psychology."
--Alex P. Pentland, Professor, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
"This is a spellbinding book. Dr. Etcoff raises--and often answers--fascinating questions about how the brain responds to the beauty of the human form."
--V.S. Ramachandran, Professor and Director, Center for Brain and Cognition, University of California, San Diego, author (with S. Blakeslee) of Phantoms in the Brain