Last Ape Standing: The Seven-Million-Year Story of How and Why We
Survived by Chip Walter 



incisive, rational and compelling

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The
blurb on the cover of this book offers the story of how, as a species, we
survived the last seven million years of evolution. This topic has already been
addressed in different ways in recent books by experts such as Ian Tattersal and
EO Wilson, both five star efforts. Nevertheless, Walter is an incisive
generalist with a flair for exposition and rational argument and, as a result,
his book is a stand-out. At times it seems like a flow of consciousness, with a
few typos etc, but this only serves to sustain it as a clear and unbiased
account of the convergence of factors which provided an evolutionary advantage
to Homo sapiens.The bibliography and notes are excellent.

Walter makes
his main case in seventy pages: the occurrence of neoteny, larger brains forcing
earlier births, the mushrooming of childhood learning to adapt to the problems
of a specific time and place, and the utilization of these advantages to
strengthen the moral foundations of human groups. Insights into contemporary
society abound.

The
discussion then turns to our geographic expansion and the competition amongst
hominids. Conjecture regarding the strengths and weaknesses of Homo neanderthal
is the basis of a poignant and informative reflection on that species. Walter
builds on the emergent features of H. sapiens to examine the reasons,
developmental, chemical or social, that lead to abstract thought, logic, art and
our species' eternal fascination with the innovative and youthful. The
penultimate topic of Walter's synthesis of being human is 'The Voice Inside Your
Head', a compelling thought-piece on our ability to abstract from our behavior,
using self perception to reflect and plan. Discussion of the times when this
ability gets shaky, leading to mental illness, clarifies the points Walter
makes. Walter concludes with a punt on the future, no punches pulled but
cognizant of what got us this far.

If human evolution was not the topic
of constant commentary, Walter's book would be a contemporary classic. It still
might be.