Review by Booklist Review
Much has changed in the landscape of love and dating since the first edition of anthropologist Fisher's Anatomy of Love was published over 20 years ago, spurring this revised and updated version. Fisher, who today serves as chief scientific advisor to Match.com and who has spoken in two recent TED talks, looks to other cultures, the animal kingdom, and our most primitive bipedal predecessors to make compelling logical leaps for the origins of human behavior and how that behavior explains the way people love, lust after, and bond with one another. While much of the heavily footnoted, appealingly organized text cites sources predating her first edition, Fisher also presents plenty of new research and data, some of it her own studies using MRI to witness the brain activity of people in various stages of love. In short, if the 1992 edition circulates in your collection, best to replace it with this one. The recent success of comedian Aziz Ansari and sociologist Eric Klinenberg's Modern Romance (2015) suggests readers might be looking for further, more serious reading on the topic; Fisher's book and its hundreds upon hundreds of cited sources won't disappoint them. Appendixes also include two of Fisher's love-and-personality surveys.--Bostrom, Annie Copyright 2016 Booklist
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
In this revised and expanded edition of her 1994 study on the nature of love, lust, and relationships, anthropologist Fisher (Why Him? Why Her?), chief scientific advisor to Match.com, applies a wide-ranging, scientific approach to the subject of love and relationships, addressing it from a variety of angles. Drawing on interviews, scientific surveys, anecdotes, and much more, she undertakes to explain "how we court; who we choose; how we bond; why some are adulterous and some divorce; how the drive to love evolved; why we have teenagers and vast networks of kin to rear our young; why a man can't be more like a woman and vice versa; how sex and romance drastically altered with the invention of the plow." The result is a dense read that conveys a wealth of information, both useful and trivial, in the attempt to cover every aspect of a vast and mutable subject. Fisher is consistent, however, in keeping the tone light, regardless of whether she is discussing marriage rituals, polygamy, flirting, or incest taboos. At the heart of it all is "the unquenchable, adaptable, and primordial human drive to love." People seeking easy answers to relationship issues may feel disappointed or overwhelmed, but there's no shortage of food for thought. (Feb.) © Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.
(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Review by Library Journal Review
Anthropologist Fisher (senior research fellow, Kinsey Inst.; chief scientific advisor, Match.com) has revised her classic book on sex and relationships, which was originally published in 1992. The author approaches her subject by referencing crosscultural studies, human physiology, evolutionary biology, psychology, primatology, and statistics, and, with this edition, surveys from online dating services. Topics covered include love and attraction, attachment, monogamy, adultery, divorce, gender differences, sexual politics, and the future of sex. In this newer edition Fisher draws upon the growing body of research on sex and relationships from the neurosciences, the physiology of hormones, paleoanthropology, genetics, sexual orientation studies, and both evolutionary and social psychology. The original portions provide a natural history filled with entertaining and informative anecdotes and narratives that offer context and background. For Fisher, relationships and their cultural accoutrements have come and gone throughout human history, but love remains enduring; it is this sanguineness for love's universality that drives Fisher's understanding of human behavior. VERDICT This work remains a solid introduction to the nature of sex and relationships, albeit cursory in depth of coverage. Highly recommended to readers interested in human sexuality. [See Prepub Alert, 8/24/15.]-Scott Vieira, Rice Univ. Lib., Houston © Copyright 2015. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
(c) Copyright Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
