Boyd Books

This book is a splendid and well-organised collection of papers in which the authors developed and argued for their understanding and explanation of humans and human societies. This theory is known as the theory of dual inheritance.

The book consists of 5 parts: the evolution of social learning; ethnic groups and markers; human cooperation, reciprocity and group selection; archaeology and culture history; and finally links to other disciplines.

Being a social scientist whose interest in long-term historical processes increasingly stretched out until it comprised the evolution of hominids and homines and who learnt a lot of the biological and archaeological part of the story from books by Robert Boyd and colleagues, this book adds a kind of finishing touch.

From other work by Boyd I learnt that there are alternatives or rather extensions to socio-biology and evolutionary psychology that preserve a lot of sociological wisdom on the nature and mechanisms of institutional change. The key is that cultural change, which is predicated on the evolutionary acquired capacities to (observational) learning and cooperation by mostly credulous beings, can lead to cumulative adaptive changes which could not have been caused by natural selection.

Robert Boyd and Joan B. Silk, How Humans Evolved, W.W. Norton & Company, New York. London, 2003, 3rd ed.) already convinced me of the wisdom and validity of the approach. The most attractive feature of the book under review here lies in the fact that the ideas put forward and explained in the Boyd-Silk textbook can be found argued in a much more detail and scientific finesse.

In my view the book is indispensable for social scientists trying to find their way in the controversies that still surround this important field of intellectual endeavours


One personal note: I still do not completely understand the following enigmatic paragraph in Boyd and Silk (2003, p. 475):
"If aging is due to antagonistic pleiotropy, there will be many synchronized causes of aging.
Organisms are complex systems with many different, partially independent subsystems, each potentially subject to aging. The kinds of failures leading to aging of the teeth are likely to be quite different from the kinds of failures leading to aging of the heart, eye, or brain.
To see why these processes should be synchronized, suppose that one cause of aging, such as heart disease, acts at much earlier ages than all of the other causes of aging.
Then selection would either favor the postponement of the expression of genes that cause heart disease so that heart disease becomes synchronized with other forms of aging, or it would favor earlier action of all the other causes of aging, so that they become synchronized with heart disease.
In either case selection would cause all forms of aging to occur simultaneously.
Thus if aging, is due to antagonistic pleiotropy, it is unlikely that curing one, or only a few processes would lead to indefinitely long life."

Frans Kerstholt

Over a hundred years ago, James Baldwin posited that through the development of a good trick individuals could give themselves a survival advantage over individuals lacking such a good trick.

As a simple illustration, monkeys using sticks to extract ants from an anthill would have an advantage over monkeys who fail to use such a tool. Likewise, vampire bats who share their evening take with less successful bats and thereby are reciprocated on nights when they themselves are unsuccessful at the hunt would be another example.

Significantly, through culture, human opportunities to acquire knowledge of useful tools and acquire society through which to obtain reciprocal benefits have sort of created a Baldwin effect writ large...an uber good trick that has enabled them to populate pretty much every biosphere on the planet.

This book is a very articulated discussion of the delicate calculus of this process in human society propogated on all levels...from the reasons for its origins to comparisons in interdisciplinary study of its findings.
Relevant to law, economics and religious studies, it's a significant and helpful read.

"This brief book [is] designed to be read conveniently in one sitting ... This book is an attempt to draw in sweeping outline form the Plan of Redemption, the course that each must follow. It is an effort to present the essential truths each of us must know if we are to move safely through life. Thereafter, separate principles, truths, and ideals gathered at random may be fitted into the plan. ...It was meant to be brief yet inclusive. It was meant to be read more than once."

As President Packer indicates, this book is a minimal statement about the plan our Father in Heaven has for us. By being a minimal statement, he is not in any way minimizing the importance of the Gospel. Rather, he takes us spiritually to "the bottom line," to the first principles. And, as Aristotle observed, wisdom is the science of first principles (Basic Writings of Existentialism (Modern Library Classics) Metaphysics, Bk. 11, ch.1).

So President Packer wants us to be wise by understanding the basics of the Plan of Salvation. His methodology is simple. He gives us a thumbnail preview: "There is great value at the beginning of a course to receive a relatively brief, but very carefully organized, overview of the entire course from beginning to end. Then the class can start at the beginning again and repeat the very same course, this time at greater length and in much more detail. The second time they go over the material, the light of learning shines more brightly because of the perspective that is gained."

Do not expect anything new, but do expect your understanding (and wisdom) to be renewed as you review the gospel fundamentals in a short, yet sweeping review of the plan. He deserves credit for touching upon the heads of gospel ideals, and presenting them in a concise manner.

Being the artist, President Packer has included beautiful illustrations to compliment the beautiful text, and the sublime ideas. This book is meant to be a gift book, and is perfect for new members, soon-to-be missionaries, or old experts wishing to see the gospel in a new way.

This book explains the meaning of life in simple and profound language. Boyd K. Packer, a modern-day Apostle of Jesus Christ, has written this inspired book along with beautiful pictures to illustrate the doctrines and principles of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. It outlines where we come from, why we're here, and where we go after death. A must read!

Stop reading right now if you don't believe in evolution. Evolution is central to the book's tenets. The Paleolithic Prescription is far from a diet book. It builds a very compelling case from fossil records and modern-day hunter gatherers that the lifestyle our bodies have evolved to excel in consist of FAR more exercise and fiber and far less sugar and fat than our modern culture gives us.

Whether you read this book to gain a better understanding of the human body or to simply inform your choices on diet and exercise with real science, it's a great read. Highly recommended.

i've read a lot of crazy things both for and against the so called "cave man" diet. some would say its an unfounded fad diet from the 80's. on the other side you have cave man diet websites telling you beans and potatoes are toxic.

this book isn't either. i feel its a sound, well reasoned look at diet from a different perspective. the basic premise is to look at the foods man's body evolved on. what has man been eating for the last 50,000 years? how is this different from todays diet? how can this paleolithic diet be approximated with modern foods? what would the heath benefits be? how does the modern diet differ in salt content, fat content, carbohydrate content? what diseases are more prevalent with todays diet?

its looks at both the fossil record and modern hunter gather societies to determine the content of the paleolithic diet.

in addition to diet it covers (in less depth) exercise, and some lifestyle.

weather you take up the diet or not i feel its informative and very interesting.

Bill Boyd does his homework. "Panama; An Historial Novel," is a wonderful work of fiction filled with valuable nuggets of history. Still and all, the author does a splendid job a capturing the "zeitgeist" of this vibrant era that was spurred by a brash young president enamored with "Manifest Destiny."

This is a book that is hard to put down. Most avid readers will go cover to cover in 48 hours. Boyd's masterful command of dialogue keeps the plot moving at a brisk pace. Moreover, Boyd is a polished writer who constructs a powerful protagonist who shines in moments of conflict.

This book is much more than a swashbuckling account of a dynamic moment in American history. Boyd is a deep writer and nurtures a strong understanding of a young nation boldly storming onto the world stage as a global superpower.

This book is full of a history which I was not aware of and is most informative about the way the United States became the builder of the Panama Canal and of how, in the end, we had to give up this great engineering feat. Moreover, being a novel, it is very fast reading. It moves rapidly and intelligently and is, in my opinion, an easy way to learn history.

Danae' Bush captures the genuine essence of love and pain of WWII. This is a must read for not only war buffs but has a unique appeal to women as well. Danae' skillfully wraps a passionate love story around the pain of the POW experience. The story is a true to life page-turner that you will not be able to put down.

Danae Bush captures the genuine essence of love and pain in a WWII setting. This is a must read for not only war buffs but has a unique appeal to women as well. Danae skillfully wraps a passionate love story around the pain of the POW experience. The story is a true to life page-turner that you will not be able to put down.

If you live in Iowa . . . or. . . if you have a pig farm. . . or if you earn your living from the pork industry. . . or if you just plain get a kick out of pigs, then buy this book and read it to your young children.

Alphabet books can be boring, simple, intriguing, and/or tell a story. This one tells a story. It seems that a family of pigs gets together each summer for a pignic. (Don't we all?) And, ironically, the family has a pig with a name from each letter of the alphabet. More intriguing, each of them brings a food to the pignic that begins with the same letter as their name. Isn't that great?? They can remember Cousin Karl's name because he brought ". . . pickled kumquat mousse" to the event. Enjoy the fun.

I love this book and so do the children in my 1st grade class! The illustrations are whimsical and detailed enough to hold the children's interest when they "read" independently. There is one short sentence per page (For example: Ray steamed pots of rice.)so that young readers can build reading confidence with this book. If you are a fan of alphabet books, pigs, and/or food (after all, it is an accounting of a "pignic" ), you will enjoy this book!

I've given this book as a gift to many nieces, nephews, and young friends - and they have all loved it! Joey is a character children can "trust" because, like them, he's not perfect. By turns loving, uncertain, disrespectful, heroic, and so on, Joey grows - but not without the growing pains young readers themselves experience. In addition, author Carol Harris neatly disguises lessons about history and tolerance in this novel, so young readers never feel that they are being "preached to." I especially admire Harris' keen ability to understand and relate the nuances of evolving relationships between characters. Make "A Place for Joey" on your bookshelf because it is a tale of Boston, of family, of immigrant experience, and of a local disaster - but mostly because it is a terrific read.

This is a story about immigrants in America told from a kid's point of view. It has great characters and exciting action built around one of the most bizarre disasters in American history: the great Boston molasses flood of 1919!

I have been aware of Malcolm Boyd's activism in the gay community for quite some time, but I had not read much of his writing. "A Prophet in His Own Land" is a wonderful compilation of Boyd's work (essays, poems and writings) spanning half a century. Each section of the book is devoted to a different decade, starting with Boyd's career in Hollywood in the 1950's and taking us through his political and social activism in the following decades, all the way up to the present day. It's nice to see the progression of Boyd's writing from decade to decade, and I learned a lot about gay history along the way. What I most enjoyed, however, were the present-day interviews with Boyd by editors Bo Young and Dan Vera which begin each section of the book. I found myself with highlighter out, marking Boyd's inspiring words of wisdom, especially where he speaks of cultivating simplicity and dedicating our lives to service of others. A leader in the gay spirituality, Boyd asks, "Why does religion separate people instead of unitying them?" and reminds the gay community that "We are needed by Christ to help people who wonder: how can we relate the sexual and the spiritual in our lives?" I highly recommend "A Prophet in His Own Land" not only to those students of gay history and activism, but especially to those of us looking to reconcile our spirituality and sexuality.
-Salvatore Sapienza, author of Seventy Times Seven: A Novel

This is the first and only such collection of Malcolm Boyd's five decades of writings, spanning from his early years in Hollywood, through the strife of the civil rights movement with Martin Luther King, Stonewall, and now as writer and poet in residence at the Episcopal Diocese of Los Angeles.

From the review in EDGE: Boyd was very active in the Civil Rights movement. His descriptions of the utter degradation and hateful actions against blacks in the South in his "Blind No More" series really opened my eyes. This is fascinating stuff, and well worth the price of the book in itself.

Essays, poetry, magazine articles and interview give as full a picture of this important cultural voice as has ever been published.

Mary Jo Roberts illustrates this celebration of the Pumpkin Fairy, who discovers her magic powers in defense of the pumpkins in the pumpkin patch. The Pumpkin Fairy will require parental assistance or good reading skills, but presents a fun and different story of Halloween and magic which will intrigue parents and kids alike.

A sweet story, my three children love it! The illustrations are amazing! Beautiful, bright with vivid color and wonderful detail. In a world where Halloween has received such a bad rap, finally a book to restore the magic of Halloween. I bought several for gifts. I Highly recommend it!

This being the first book i have read of Boyds. I have found this one of the most eye opening reads in a long time, any serious student who has a passion for understanding the spirit, occult symbolism and astrotheology needs to read this.

I have not completed the text, but I must admit that IMO any text by Kuhn is a keeper for my library.