Eve's Seed

In this provocative reinterpretation of the human experience, noted historian Robert S. McElvaine bridges the gap between evolutionary biology and history to create a new approach he terms “biohistory.” Here for the first time he presents a startlingly fresh thesis: misperceptions about sexual difference and procreative power have, along with misleading sexual metaphors, been the major forces in history.

Robert S. McElvaine is Elizabeth Chisholm Professor of Arts and Letters and Chair of the Department of History at Millsaps College.

Acknowledgments

vii

Prologue A Man's World?

1

(16)

90 Percent Nature: 90 Percent Nurture?

17

(18)

Biology, Culture, and History

The Way We Were (and Are)

35

(23)

Human Nature

Men Are from New York; Women Are from Philadelphia

58

(24)

Sex and the ``Notawoman'' Definition of Manhood

Paradise Lost

82

(24)

Agriculture and the Genesis of ``History''

Hell Hath No Fury Like a Man Devalued

106

(13)

The Neolithic ``Backlash''

Going to Seed

119

(16)

The Metaphor that (Mis)shaped History

``All Power and Glory Are Yours, Almighty Father''

135

(16)

Male Monotheism and Its Consequences

``No Mother Gave Me Birth''

151

(33)

Women and Men in the First Millennium B. C. E.

She Is Risen-And Fallen

184

(26)

The Sexes from Early Christianity Through the Middle Ages

Human Liberation Is Women's Liberation

210

(24)

Women and Men in a Marketplace World

No Woman Is an Island

234

(16)

``Feminine Values'' in a Land of Self-Made Men

``I Can't Be Satisfied''

250

(29)

The Sexes and Twentieth-Century Consumerculture

Verbal Mounting

279

(17)

Pseudosexing, the Notawoman Definition, and Obscenity

``I Am Notawoman: Hear Me Roar''

296

(26)

Male Insecurity, the Drive for Power, and War

The ``Masculine''/Marketplace Mystique

322

(20)

To Be a Woman or to Be Notawoman

``I've Got to Be a Macho Man''

342

(29)

The Bi-Polar Sex Disorder in the Last Half Century

Fears of Our Fathers, Living Still

371

(22)

How Ancient Mistakes About Sex Continue to Affect Us

Endnotes

393

(50)

Index

443

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Summary

Author Biography

Table of Contents

Supplemental Materials