A NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER
LONGLISTED FOR THE WOMEN'S PRIZE FOR NON-FICTION 2024
FOYLE'S NON-FICTION BOOK OF THE YEAR 2023
LONGLISTED FOR BLACKWELL'S NON-FICTION BOOK OF THE YEAR 2023
ONE OF THE GUARDIAN'S BEST IDEAS BOOKS OF 2023
ONE OF THE TELEGRAPH'S FIFTY BEST BOOKS OF 2023
ONE OF PROSPECT'S BOOKS OF THE YEAR 2023
ONE OF DUA LIPA'S SERVICE95 RECOMMENDATIONS FOR '5 INSPIRING READS TO KICK START THE NEW YEAR'

'Funny and very important' Chris van Tulleken, bestseling author of Ultra-Processed People

'Educates and emboldens' Bonnie Garmus, bestselling author of Lessons in Chemistry

'Enchantingly written, the pages sparkle with delightful and novel facts' Walter Gilbert, winner of the Nobel Prize in Chemistry 1980

'Should revolutionise our understanding of human life' George Monbiot, bestselling author of Regenesis

'A vast and revolutionary history of female evolution' Sunday Times

How did wet nurses drive civilization? Are women always the weaker sex? Is sexism useful for evolution? And are our bodies at war with our babies?

In Eve, Cat Bohannon answers questions scientists should have been addressing for decades. With boundless curiosity and sharp wit, she covers the past 200 million years to explain the specific science behind the development of the female sex. Eve is not only a sweeping revision of human history, it's an urgent and necessary corrective for a world that has focused primarily on the male body for far too long. Bohannon's findings, including everything from the way C-sections in the industrialized world are rearranging women's pelvic shape to the surprising similarities between pus and breast milk, will completely change what you think you know about evolution and why Homo sapiens have become such a successful and dominant species, from tool use to city building to the development of language.

"A page-turning whistle-stop tour of mammalian development that begins in the Jurassic Era, Eve recasts the traditional story of evolutionary biology by placing women at its center . . . The book is engaging, playful, erudite, discursive and rich with detail" - New York Times

"[Cat Bohannon] is revolutionising our understanding of the human body with her female-centric history of the species. A hugely ambitious piece of work, and one that doesn’t pull its punches . . . character and storytelling are clearly second nature to Bohannon . . . It's a book that’s packed full of surprising revelations" - Guardian

"A vast and revolutionary history of female evolution . . . [Eve] is a gripping, lyrical tale of female suffering, of remarkable resilience, of the lengths we will go to to survive and to protect our young. It makes being a woman seem truly extraordinary" - Sunday Times

"Why do women live longer than men? Why are women more likely to get Alzheimer's? And what is it with this damn menopause? Ten years in the writing, this triumph of rigor and accessibility by a Columbia University researcher is a myth-busting look at how the female body has driven evolution over the past 200 million years, continuing to shape all our lives today. In short it's a brilliant book about "breasts, and blood, and fat, and vaginas, and wombs...how they came to be and how we live with them now, no matter how weird or hilarious the truth is."" - The Bookseller, Editor's Choice

"A writer with a doctorate in the evolution of narrative and cognition, Bohannon offers a refreshing and lively corrective to a story that has focused mainly on male evolution" - Nature

"Bohannon tells an exhilarating evolutionary story, as prodigiously researched as it is entertainingly written . . . Bohannon will annoy some and challenge some preconceptions – but her book is fascinating" - Mail on Sunday

"Eve is a bold, original and bracingly ambitious feminist retelling of the origin of human society" - New Statesman

"A fascinating study" - Telegraph

"An opinionated clapback against centuries of male-centric evolutionary history . . . Eve is an endless source of dinner-party trivia, much of it inappropriate for actual dinner parties . . . Eve also suggests a new way of thinking about one’s body: as a thing of time, built on a foundation developed over millions of years . . . Eve is a love letter to the ancient, creaking wonder that is evolution." - New York Times

"Cat Bohannon awards women their rightful place in evolutionary history and argues that gynaecology is the reason we are all alive today . . . Radical and fresh . . . [Eve] is an impressive and expansive body of work" - Irish Independent

"Fascinating . . . An impressive feat . . . Existing as a woman in our increasingly atomized world can be isolating in ways that are hard to even identify. Beyond making me gasp aloud in wonder, Bohannon’s book was an unexpected antidote, delivering a profound sense of kinship with every other woman who’s ever existed (plus those various Eve ancestors)" - Jezebel

"A capacious investigation of women throughout time . . . A jaunty, digressive, and often whimsical tale examining the origins of some defining features of womanhood . . . Prodigious research informs a spirited history of humanity" - Kirkus Reviews

"Bohannon offers a bracing corrective to male-centric evolutionary accounts. She balances scientific rigor with entertaining prose . . . An illuminating and fresh take on how human evolution unfolded" - Publishers Weekly

"[A] punchy and utterly compelling book, which not only traces the evolutionary paths of our male and female ancestors over the past 200 million years but also argues that the way female bodies changed during that time made us who we are today: mankind is essentially womankind. Along the way, [Cat Bohannon] scatters explosive facts about our human ancestors, their animal cousins and our modern selves like miniature grenades. Rarely have I read a book in which every page brims with such astounding revelations . . . She has a gift for turning complex scientific theory into clear and breezy language, framing each chapter with an engaging vignette . . . A fast-paced yet scholarly book, containing 140 pages of notes, Eve is a magnificent achievement." - Literary Review

"Cat Bohannon takes a stylish scalpel to innumerable examples of the dysfunctional ways in which medicine and technology have been limping along according to an assumed “male norm”, and investigates the evolution of female anatomy all the way back to mammals that scurried around under the feet of the dinosaurs. Highly entertaining, and full of novel perceptions." - Guardian, 'Best Ideas Books of 2023'

"You might not look at humankind the same way again after reading Eve by Cat Bohannon. The title is a nod to the biblical first woman, but it’s what followed her that motivates Bohannon’s work—the entire span of human evolution and how it has led to women being very different, and in many underappreciated ways, from men. This is both a powerful recasting of thousands of years of history and a powerful argument: why, still, do societies regard men as the final word in evolution?" - Prospect Magazine