Editorial Reviews
From Booklist
Setting out to write about the virtues of modern man (the author calls him Homo masculinus modernus), McAllister, a paleoanthropologist, was chagrined to discover that “from battling to boozing, babes to bravado, there’s nothing we can do that ancient men, and sometimes women, haven’t already done better, faster, stronger, and usually smarter.” But why is this? Well, to put it bluntly—and the author is certainly blunt—the modern male is an inferior species, “the worst man in history.” Physically he is weaker (the strongest modern arm wrestler would be easily beaten by a Neanderthal girl). Intellectually, he is less nimble (the cleverest freestyle rapper would be humbled by the memory feats of the ancient poets). Even narcissistically, he pales by comparison to his ancestors (the modern metrosexual seems positively bland compared to, say, the dandies of the mid-eighteenth century, or the males of a certain British Columbian indigenous tribe. Using evidence from a variety of disciplines—archaeology, linguistics, physiology—McAllister has produced a book that is informative, surprising, and, yes, quite humbling, at least for males. --David Pitt
