The field of nonverbal communication is a strategic site for demonstrating the inextricable interrelationship between nature and culture in human behaviour. This book, originally published in 1997, aims to explode the misconception that "biology" is something that automatically precludes or excludes "culture". Instead, it points to the necessary grounding of our social and cultural capabilities in biological givens and elucidates how biological factors are systematically co-opted for cultural purposes. The book presents a complex picture of human communicative ability as simultaneously biologically and socioculturally influenced, with some capacities apparently more biologically hard-wired than others: face recognition, imitation, emotional communication, and the capacity for language. It also suggests that the dividing line between nonverbal and linguistic communication is becoming much less clear-cut. The contributing authors are leading researchers in a variety of fields, writing here for a general audience. The book is divided into sections dealing with, respectively, human universals, evolutionary and developmental aspects of nonverbal behaviour within a sociocultural context, and finally, the multifaceted relationships between nonverbal communication and culture.

W.D.Hamilton (1936-2000) was responsible for a revolution in thinking about evolutionary biology - a revolution that changed our understanding of life itself. He played a central role in the realization that what matters in evolution is not the survival of the individual but of the survival of its genes. This provided the solution to the long standing problem of animal altruism that vexed even Darwin himself, and in due course resulted in terms like selfish genes, kin selection, and sociobiology becoming familiar to a wider public. Hamilton went on to solve many more major problems, and open up ever new fields - he shaped much of our current understanding of central problems including the evolution of sexual reproduction and ageing. He became world famous and garnered international prizes. But this is all in hindsight. In fact, Hamilton's recognition came late - his career is a classic case of misunderstood genius. In this illuminating and moving biography Ullica Segerstrale documents Hamilton's extraordinary life and work, revealing a man of immense intellectual curiosity, an uncompromising truth-seeker, a naturalist and jungle explorer, a risk-taker, an unconventional scientist with a poet's soul and a deep concern for life on earth and mankind's future.