The Evolution of Beauty: How Darwin's Forgotten Theory of Mate Choice Shapes the Animal World - and Us

A FINALIST FOR THE PULITZER PRIZENAMED A BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR BY THE NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW, SMITHSONIAN, AND WALL STREET JOURNALA major reimagining of how evolutionary forces work, revealing how mating preferences—what Darwin termed "the taste for the beautiful" —create the extraordinary range of ornament in the animal world.

In the great halls of science, dogma holds that Darwin' s theory of natural selection explains every branch on the tree of life: which species thrive, which wither away to extinction, and what features each evolves.