Niccolo Caldararo’s new book Big Brains and the Human Superorganism: Why Special Brains Appear in Hominids and Other Social Animals (2017) show cases his prodigious cross-disciplinary knowledge. The book is nicely organized beginning with human craniomania of the 19th and 20th centuries and ending in the apparent downward spiral of homo. It is a logical and well formulated literary progression.

Journal Of Comparative Human Biology

Caldararo’s book may serve as a helpful in­troduction to the general topic of superorganisms and the question of a human superorganism. The text is full of cita­tions linked to a variety of related issues or implications, so readers can pursue the cited literature according to their individual interests. The interdisciplinary reach of this rel­atively short work is impressive, however ambitious, and may inspire further interdisciplinary approaches to the evolutionary role of human brains—past, present or fu­ture—in culture, society, and the species at large.

Paleoanthropology

. . . this book is the must read to learn about the human brain, for all those who claim that technology will replace the human brain very soon.

Comparative Civilizations Review

Caldararo (anthropology, San Francisco State Univ.) seeks to answer a question: why are human brains so big? The first section examines the anatomy of the human brain and considers the pressures on brain size evolution (for social interactions, predator evasion, etc.) and the increased complexity of communication demands. What does big mean, when considering body size, tissue organization, neuron structure, and dendritic connections? Human brains got bigger only after the development of stone tools, about 2.6 million years ago. The book discusses brain structures and size in other social organisms, including social insects, dolphins, prairie dogs, and explores the parallels with hunting skills of cephalopods and spiders. This comparative approach is informative. The last five chapters examine the social brain's implications in the growth of human society, incorporating varied topics such as racism, homelessness, handwriting, and population growth. The text is extremely well referenced, with over 80 pages of references, and a thorough index easily directs readers to specific areas of interest. Overall, this volume offers an in-depth discussion of human brain evolution in social and historical contexts and is recommended for students and researchers with an interest in society, human evolution, and neurobiology.



Summing Up: Recommended. Upper-division undergraduates through faculty and professionals.

Choice Reviews

A far-reaching, insightful book that addresses perhaps the greatest and most exciting unresolved issue in science: how and why the large, elaborated human brain evolved.

Bernard J. Crespi, Simon Fraser University