While reading The Story of the Human Body, I was reminded of a question I inevitably get from one or more of my undergraduate biology students upon completion of our unit on evolution and natural selection: Are humans still evolving by the process of natural selection? Dr. Lieberman takes the reader on a somewhat convoluted journey, answering this critical question along the way by contrasting our species’ biological history with the rapid cultural development that it engendered. The biological and cultural history lesson is then used as a platform for his primary thesis that the disconnect between our physiology and current cultural practices have led to the advent of many human health issues.

The book is divided into three primary sections. The first part eloquently walks the reader through the evolution of early humans from our ape-like ancestors as shaped by the forces of natural selection. In the second...

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