Sarah Blaffer Hrdy graduated from Radcliffe College in 1969. For her undergraduate thesis, she wrote a paper on the study of mental adaptations that shape how and why humans invent imaginary demons. The paper was published and entitled The Black-man of Zinacantan: A Central American Legend.
Hrdy was trained as an anthropologist and became interested in the field of primate sociobiology. She returned to graduated school at Harvard University in order to learn why males in a species of monkey engaged in infanticidal behavior. This research earned her a Ph.D. in 1975, and the article was published as The Langurs of Abu: Female and Male Strategies of Reproduction. This was the first sociobiological study of wild primates that analyzed their behavior as dialectic between male and females.
Over the years, Hrdy published many articles. The New York Times selected her work, The Woman that Never Evolved, as one of the Notable Books of 1981. It demonstrated the extent to which female primates were active strategists, competitive and sexually assertive. In 1984, she wrote Infanticide: Comparative and Evolutionary Perspectives. It was selected as one of the Outstanding Academic Books of that year.
Hrdy has served as Editor of the Foundation of Human Behavior book series for many years, and to this day continues to serve on the editorial boards for The American Journal of Primatology, Evolutionary Anthropology, and Human Nature. In 1996, she resigned her position at the University of California-Davis to commit more time to her family.
Her most recent work, Mother Nature: A History of Mothers, Infants and Natural Selection, was written in 1999. This is her most popular book. It was chosen by both Publishers Weekly and Library Journal as one of the Best Books of 1999 and was a finalist for a Pen (West) Literary Award. The article talks about natural selection and how much we have in common with other living creatures on earth (Hrdy, 1999).
References:
Fisher, Helen. “Mother Nature Is An Old Lady With Bad Habits”. http://www.sciam.com/1999/1299issue/1299reviews1.html, 23 April, 2001.
Hrdy, Sarah. Mother Nature: A History Of Mothers Infants, And Natural Selection. New York: Pantheon Books, 1999.
“How Maternal Instincts Shaped the Human Species. (March). http://dcs.unl.edu/acpp/thompson/html/hrdy.html, 23 April, 2001.
Written by: Marc Zika