
The Hunting Hypothesis: A Personal Conclusion Concerning the Evolutionary Nature of Man
Robert Ardrey's Nature of Man Series, Volume 4
Failed to add items
Add to Cart failed.
Add to Wish List failed.
Remove from wishlist failed.
Adding to library failed
Follow podcast failed
Unfollow podcast failed
$0.99/mo for the first 3 months

Buy for $19.95
No default payment method selected.
We are sorry. We are not allowed to sell this product with the selected payment method
-
Narrated by:
-
Mikael Naramore
-
By:
-
Robert Ardrey
About this listen
"For millions of years, we have survived as hunters. In the few short millennia since our divorce from that necessity, there has been no time for significant biological change - anatomical, physiological, or behavioral. Today, we have small hope of comprehending ourselves and our world unless we understand that man still, in his inmost being, remains a hunter."
From this premise, supported by the accumulated research and observations of two decades of anthropological investigation, Robert Ardrey guides the listener on a remarkable journey of discovery through 20 million years of man's prehistory: from the days when his ancestors first emerged from the forests of Africa during the benevolent warmth and rains of the Miocene, through the unremitting drought of the Pliocene and the dramatic climactic shifts of the Pleistocene, down to those few thousand years past when man emerged at last onto the stage of recorded history as a fully evolved hunting animal.
In this, Ardrey's fourth book on the subject of man's origins and nature, the author addresses himself with bold logic and insights to that basic question that haunts the cellars of our conscious mind: Why is man man?
Praise for the 1976 edition:
"This is easily the best of Robert Ardrey's books. It is brilliant in its summary of recent findings, it is wonderfully persuasive in its argument about our essential human nature, and it makes a satisfying unity out of Ardrey's thinking in all his books." - Max Lerner
"I believe that Robert Ardrey's books are the most important to be written since WWII...a unique and beautiful account of the making of man." - Antony Jay
©1976 StoryDesign, LTD. (P)2015 StoryDesign, LTD.Listeners also enjoyed...
-
The Way of Men
- By: Jack Donovan
- Narrated by: Jack Donovan
- Length: 4 hrs and 57 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
What is masculinity? Ask ten men and you'll get ten vague, conflicting answers. Unlike any book of its kind, The Way of Men offers a simple, straightforward answer - without getting bogged down in religion, morality, or politics. It's a guide for understanding who men have been and the challenges men face today. The Way of Men captures the silent, stifling rage of men everywhere who find themselves at odds with the overregulated, overcivilized, politically correct modern world.
-
-
A book I plan on reccomending my sons
- By SlimCognito on 07-10-15
By: Jack Donovan
-
A Hunter-Gatherer's Guide to the 21st Century
- Evolution and the Challenges of Modern Life
- By: Heather Heying, Bret Weinstein
- Narrated by: Heather Heying, Bret Weinstein
- Length: 8 hrs and 17 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
We are living through the most prosperous age in all of human history, yet we are listless, divided, and miserable. Wealth and comfort are unparalleled, but our political landscape is unmoored, and rates of suicide, loneliness, and chronic illness continue to skyrocket. How do we explain the gap between these truths? And how should we respond? For evolutionary biologists Heather Heying and Bret Weinstein, the cause of our troubles is clear: The accelerating rate of change in the modern world has outstripped the capacity of our brains and bodies to adapt.
-
-
Presents conjecture and bias as science
- By Reviewer on 09-16-21
By: Heather Heying, and others
-
The Charisma Myth
- How Anyone Can Master the Art and Science of Personal Magnetism
- By: Olivia Fox Cabane
- Narrated by: Lisa Cordileione
- Length: 8 hrs and 20 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
What if charisma could be taught? For the first time, science and technology have taken charisma apart, figured it out and turned it into an applied science: In controlled laboratory experiments, researchers could raise or lower people's level of charisma as if they were turning a dial. What you'll find here is practical magic: unique knowledge, drawn from a variety of sciences, revealing what charisma really is and how it works. You'll get both the insights and the techniques you need to apply this knowledge. The world will become your lab, and every person you meet, a chance to experiment.
-
-
the mystery of the missing workbook
- By kwinebold on 12-10-13
-
The Art of Manliness - Manvotionals
- Timeless Wisdom and Advice on Living the 7 Manly Virtues
- By: Brett McKay, Kate McKay
- Narrated by: Stephen Hoye
- Length: 8 hrs and 25 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
What makes a man manly? Master the art of manliness by learning about the seven manly virtues in this essential guide from authors Brett and Kate McKay. Each chapter covers one of the seven virtues and is packed with the best classic advice ever written down for men.
-
-
Just Quotes, No Content. Save Your Credit!
- By chris on 10-28-13
By: Brett McKay, and others
-
The Professor in the Cage
- Why Men Fight and Why We like to Watch
- By: Jonathan Gottschall
- Narrated by: Quincy Dunn-Baker
- Length: 7 hrs and 45 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
When a mixed martial arts (MMA) gym moves in across the street from his office, Jonathan Gottschall sees a challenge and an opportunity. Pushing 40, out of shape, and disenchanted with his job as an adjunct English professor, part of him yearns to cross the street and join up. The other part is terrified.
-
-
Not what I was expecting
- By Nathan Kemp on 03-07-17
-
The White Pill
- A Tale of Good and Evil
- By: Michael Malice
- Narrated by: Michael Malice
- Length: 9 hrs and 11 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The Bolsheviks promised that they were building a new society, a workers’ paradise that would change the nature of mankind itself. What they ended up constructing was the largest prison the world had ever seen: a Union of Soviet Socialist Republics that spanned half the globe.
-
-
Do not buy the audio version.
- By Todd on 02-20-23
By: Michael Malice
-
The Way of Men
- By: Jack Donovan
- Narrated by: Jack Donovan
- Length: 4 hrs and 57 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
What is masculinity? Ask ten men and you'll get ten vague, conflicting answers. Unlike any book of its kind, The Way of Men offers a simple, straightforward answer - without getting bogged down in religion, morality, or politics. It's a guide for understanding who men have been and the challenges men face today. The Way of Men captures the silent, stifling rage of men everywhere who find themselves at odds with the overregulated, overcivilized, politically correct modern world.
-
-
A book I plan on reccomending my sons
- By SlimCognito on 07-10-15
By: Jack Donovan
-
A Hunter-Gatherer's Guide to the 21st Century
- Evolution and the Challenges of Modern Life
- By: Heather Heying, Bret Weinstein
- Narrated by: Heather Heying, Bret Weinstein
- Length: 8 hrs and 17 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
We are living through the most prosperous age in all of human history, yet we are listless, divided, and miserable. Wealth and comfort are unparalleled, but our political landscape is unmoored, and rates of suicide, loneliness, and chronic illness continue to skyrocket. How do we explain the gap between these truths? And how should we respond? For evolutionary biologists Heather Heying and Bret Weinstein, the cause of our troubles is clear: The accelerating rate of change in the modern world has outstripped the capacity of our brains and bodies to adapt.
-
-
Presents conjecture and bias as science
- By Reviewer on 09-16-21
By: Heather Heying, and others
-
The Charisma Myth
- How Anyone Can Master the Art and Science of Personal Magnetism
- By: Olivia Fox Cabane
- Narrated by: Lisa Cordileione
- Length: 8 hrs and 20 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
What if charisma could be taught? For the first time, science and technology have taken charisma apart, figured it out and turned it into an applied science: In controlled laboratory experiments, researchers could raise or lower people's level of charisma as if they were turning a dial. What you'll find here is practical magic: unique knowledge, drawn from a variety of sciences, revealing what charisma really is and how it works. You'll get both the insights and the techniques you need to apply this knowledge. The world will become your lab, and every person you meet, a chance to experiment.
-
-
the mystery of the missing workbook
- By kwinebold on 12-10-13
-
The Art of Manliness - Manvotionals
- Timeless Wisdom and Advice on Living the 7 Manly Virtues
- By: Brett McKay, Kate McKay
- Narrated by: Stephen Hoye
- Length: 8 hrs and 25 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
What makes a man manly? Master the art of manliness by learning about the seven manly virtues in this essential guide from authors Brett and Kate McKay. Each chapter covers one of the seven virtues and is packed with the best classic advice ever written down for men.
-
-
Just Quotes, No Content. Save Your Credit!
- By chris on 10-28-13
By: Brett McKay, and others
-
The Professor in the Cage
- Why Men Fight and Why We like to Watch
- By: Jonathan Gottschall
- Narrated by: Quincy Dunn-Baker
- Length: 7 hrs and 45 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
When a mixed martial arts (MMA) gym moves in across the street from his office, Jonathan Gottschall sees a challenge and an opportunity. Pushing 40, out of shape, and disenchanted with his job as an adjunct English professor, part of him yearns to cross the street and join up. The other part is terrified.
-
-
Not what I was expecting
- By Nathan Kemp on 03-07-17
-
The White Pill
- A Tale of Good and Evil
- By: Michael Malice
- Narrated by: Michael Malice
- Length: 9 hrs and 11 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The Bolsheviks promised that they were building a new society, a workers’ paradise that would change the nature of mankind itself. What they ended up constructing was the largest prison the world had ever seen: a Union of Soviet Socialist Republics that spanned half the globe.
-
-
Do not buy the audio version.
- By Todd on 02-20-23
By: Michael Malice
-
The Sixth Extinction
- An Unnatural History
- By: Elizabeth Kolbert
- Narrated by: Anne Twomey
- Length: 9 hrs and 59 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
A major audiobook about the future of the world, blending intellectual and natural history and field reporting into a powerful account of the mass extinction unfolding before our eyes. Over the last half a billion years, there have been five mass extinctions, when the diversity of life on Earth suddenly and dramatically contracted. Scientists around the world are currently monitoring the sixth extinction, predicted to be the most devastating extinction event since the asteroid impact that wiped out the dinosaurs.
-
-
Lifts you out of the ordinary
- By Regina on 04-28-14
-
Coyote America
- A Natural and Supernatural History
- By: Dan Flores
- Narrated by: Elijah Alexander
- Length: 8 hrs and 51 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Coyote America is both an environmental and a deep natural history of the coyote. It traces both the five-million-year-long biological story of an animal that has become the "wolf" in our backyards and its cultural evolution from a preeminent spot in Native American religions to the hapless foil of the Road Runner. A deeply American tale, the story of the coyote in the American West and beyond is a sort of Manifest Destiny in reverse.
-
-
Very Enjoyable Book, Subject Matter, and Reader
- By John Townsend on 03-17-17
By: Dan Flores
-
American Serengeti
- The Last Big Animals of the Great Plains
- By: Dan Flores
- Narrated by: Michael Kramer
- Length: 8 hrs and 3 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
America's Great Plains once possessed one of the grandest wildlife spectacles of the world, equaled only by such places as the Serengeti, the Masai Mara, or the veld of South Africa. Pronghorn antelope, gray wolves, bison, coyotes, wild horses, and grizzly bears: less than 200 years ago these creatures existed in such abundance that John James Audubon was moved to write "it is impossible to describe or even conceive the vast multitudes of these animals".
-
-
Could have been great, but
- By An Amazon Buyer on 08-29-18
By: Dan Flores
-
The Origins of Creativity
- By: Edward O. Wilson
- Narrated by: Jonathan Hogan
- Length: 5 hrs and 33 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
"Creativity is the unique and defining trait of our species, and its ultimate goal, self-understanding", begins Edward O. Wilson's sweeping examination of the humanities and its relationship to the sciences. By studying fields as diverse as paleontology, evolutionary biology, and neuroscience, Wilson demonstrates that human creativity began not 10,000 years ago, as we have long assumed, but over 100,000 years ago in the Paleolithic Age.
-
-
Copy & Paste Book
- By Jiri Klouda on 10-05-18
By: Edward O. Wilson
-
Shadows of Forgotten Ancestors
- By: Carl Sagan, Ann Druyan
- Narrated by: Nick Sagan, Ann Druyan, Clinnette Minnis
- Length: 15 hrs and 44 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
World renowned scientist Carl Sagan and acclaimed author Ann Druyan have written a Roots for the human species, a lucid and riveting account of how humans got to be the way we are. It shows with humor and drama that many of our key traits - self-awareness, technology, family ties, submission to authority, hatred for those a little different from ourselves, reason, and ethics - are rooted in the deep past, and illuminated by our kinship with other animals.
-
-
A very important read, poor audio performance
- By Tyeen Taylor on 03-17-19
By: Carl Sagan, and others
-
The Truth About Animals
- Stoned Sloths, Lovelorn Hippos, and Other Tales from the Wild Side of Wildlife
- By: Lucy Cooke
- Narrated by: Lucy Cooke
- Length: 10 hrs and 28 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Mary Roach meets Sam Kean and Bill Bryson in this uproarious tour of the basest instincts and biggest mysteries of the animal world. In The Truth About Animals, Lucy Cooke takes us on a worldwide journey to meet everyone from a Colombian hippo castrator to a Chinese panda porn peddler, all to lay bare the secret - and often hilarious - habits of the animal kingdom. Charming and at times downright weird, this modern bestiary is perfect for anyone who has ever suspected that virtue might be unnatural.
-
-
Great listen, highly recommend
- By Thomas on 06-26-18
By: Lucy Cooke
-
The Warrior Poet Way
- A Guide to Living Free and Dying Well
- By: John Lovell
- Narrated by: John Lovell, Rebekah Lovell
- Length: 7 hrs and 46 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
There is a war on masculinity, and everywhere we look—on every front we hold sacred—we can see the painful reminders of this collapsing order. The chaos and crisis we are experiencing today should be a signal for men everywhere to rise up; to fight to preserve our way of life by once again walking the ancient paths. But this isn’t a journey that need be taken alone.
-
-
It’s so good that I bought both Audible and ebook versions
- By NotACat on 07-17-23
By: John Lovell
-
How the Dog Became the Dog
- From Wolves to Our Best Friends
- By: Mark Derr
- Narrated by: David Colacci
- Length: 8 hrs and 22 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
That the dog evolved from the wolf is an accepted fact of evolution and history, but the question of how wolf became dog has remained a mystery, obscured by myth and legend. How the Dog Became the Dog posits that dog was an evolutionary inevitability in the nature of the wolf and its human soul mate. The natural temperament and social structure of humans and wolves are so similar that as soon as they met on the trail they recognized themselves in each other.
-
-
Interesting and thorough, but not for everyone
- By N. Rogers on 12-12-11
By: Mark Derr
-
The Virtues of War
- A Novel of Alexander the Great
- By: Steven Pressfield
- Narrated by: John Lee
- Length: 12 hrs and 4 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
I have always been a soldier. I have known no other life. So begins Alexander’s extraordinary confession on the eve of his greatest crisis of leadership. By turns heroic and calculating, compassionate and utterly merciless, Alexander recounts with a warrior’s unflinching eye for detail the blood, the terror, and the tactics of his greatest battlefield victories.
-
-
Pressfield the Prodigy
- By Michael on 10-07-08
-
The Accidental Species
- Misunderstandings of Human Evolution
- By: Henry Gee
- Narrated by: Martin Dew
- Length: 8 hrs and 58 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The idea of a missing link between humanity and our animal ancestors predates evolution and popular science and actually has religious roots in the deist concept of the Great Chain of Being. Yet, the metaphor has lodged itself in the contemporary imagination, and new fossil discoveries are often hailed in headlines as revealing the elusive transitional step, the moment when we stopped being "animal" and started being "human". In The Accidental Species, Henry Gee, longtime paleontology editor at Nature, takes aim at this misleading notion.
-
-
Too much minutiae, please get to the point already!
- By D. Hellmann on 07-22-17
By: Henry Gee
-
The Social Conquest of Earth
- By: Edward O. Wilson
- Narrated by: Jonathan Hogan
- Length: 10 hrs and 29 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Edward O. Wilson is one of the world’s preeminent biologists, a Pulitzer Prize winner, and the author of more than 25 books. The defining work in a remarkable career, The Social Conquest of Earth boldly addresses age-old questions (Where did we come from? What are we? Where are we going?) while delving into the biological sources of morality, religion, and the creative arts.
-
-
Wow, Wilson has a lot to say and boy can he write.
- By Gary on 05-21-12
By: Edward O. Wilson
-
First Peoples in a New World
- Colonizing Ice Age America
- By: David J. Meltzer
- Narrated by: Christopher Prince
- Length: 11 hrs
- Abridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
More than 12,000 years ago, in one of the greatest triumphs of prehistory, humans colonized North America, a continent that was then truly a new world. Just when and how they did so has been one of the most perplexing and controversial questions in archaeology.
-
-
Last Gasp of American Anthropological Orthodoxy
- By Thomas66 on 01-05-17
By: David J. Meltzer
What listeners say about The Hunting Hypothesis: A Personal Conclusion Concerning the Evolutionary Nature of Man
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Ari Montisano
- 06-24-16
Mind opening.
Although many conclusions are based on inferring about behaviour, and many more are now supposedly being discarded, the experience was a great reading, interesting, dynamic and vivid.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
1 person found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- sam walusimbi
- 09-07-16
What a gem!
Even though his conclusions on industrial pollution as being a factor in climate change are the opposite of what is going on today, (a perspective I'm sure he would have revised given the data we have now) this book is a total gem...
I've read many books on similar subject matters but none connects the dots of what makes us, us as well as Ardrey. Particularly how our hunting history played such a big role in the formation of thought, cooperation and culture as we know it.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
2 people found this helpful