Rating: 
Summary: An Important and All Too Timely Book
Review: After reading an editorial in the Washington Post written by this author concerning the Taliban's treatment of women, I had to read this book. This is truly an important and timely book that touches on everything that vexes our society today - women's rights, where men fit into the modern society, racism, and how religion has played an unfortunate part in keeping women down, and that's just the tip of the iceberg. It is a dense and challenging, but worthwhile read. And when you get your copy, pass it around. It should be shared. PS. Someone should tell Bill Maher about this one. It's right up his alley.
Rating:
Summary: Great read for Women's History Month
Review: After reading many of the great reviews about Robert McElvaine's new book, Eve's Seed, I went right out and bought it. The book is extremely thought-provoking and truly does provide an almost never-before-heard-of interpretation about women and how perceptions and misperceptions about them have shaped all of history. I enjoyed the way that McElvaine explored so many different disciplines to come to the conclusions that he has. I suggest to everyone that I can to select this book for their book clubs -- there are endless topics to discuss! It is amazing to go back to events that took place 10,000 years ago and see how they have affected the way men and women are today. In one word: Enlightening!
Rating:
Summary: Challenges and Syntheses
Review: Eve's Seed is the best synthesis of these topics that I have read to date. The book falls in the category of 'revisionist' literature/history, but that terminology should be discarded because it only serves to reinforce the cultural bias so skillfully illustrated in McElvaine's book. Another reviewer below, makes the point that the word 'biology' in the subtitle is misleading because McElvaine doesn't vigorously cite biological research in support of his arguments. Rather, the reviewer suggests that 'religion' would be a better substitute in the subtitle due to the thorough analysis religion receives. I respectfully disagree. Religion (at least the Christian incarnation of religion with which I am most familiar) is a historical phenomenon, and thus it has been documented via written records by its various practitioners since its inception. McElvaine is a historian by training and, as such, a thorough analysis of religion (via its historical writings) is warranted. As a biologist, I would have enjoyed more research and discussion regarding biological evolution, but the interpretations and analysis of human biology are sound. With this in mind, lets return to the subtitle: Biology, the Sexes, and the Course of History. To replace biology with religion is a mistake that misses the thesis of the book; females and males are '...a little different (on average) and wholly equal.' McElvaine's arguments are built around this thesis. Analysis of religion represents a part of the arguments, but not the thesis. 'Hell hath no fury like a man devalued' is due to the misconception that the sexes are not equal (men are from Mars, women are from Venus - sound familiar?). If you are a strong proponent of what is often termed 'traditional' values, and if you long for a return to some long-past utopia where those values played themselves out everyday, then Eve's Seed is for you! The strength and clarity of these arguments will cause you to struggle internally to rationalize the denial that you will continue to externalize. If you already think you are enlightened and open-minded then Eve's Seed is for you, too! The wit and logic presented are delightfully crisp and the conclusions will leave you asking yourself 'why hasn't my own thinking come this far yet?' Maybe some readers have made this intellectual journey, I possessed the pieces, but was still a few years from this level of understanding. Eve's Seed is about challenges and syntheses - isn't that what life is about? PS Hannah: 'The Ovary of Eve' is next on my reading list.
Rating: 
Summary: Avoid At All Costs!!
Review: Let me hopefully save you from having to plow through several hundred pages of bunk. Even though McElvaine takes issue with a few feminists along the way, this is basically a feminist work: McElvaine finds male malfeasance and female disadvantage in all places and times down through history. Demonstrating how a little knowledge can be a dangerous things, he starts out by wading ankle deep into the currently trendy and sales-worthy waters of evolutionary psychology in attempting to write a history rooted in our evolved nature, but he never even distinghuishes in Darwin's theory between *natural* selection and *sexual* selection; indeed, the latter term is not to be found anywhere in the book. McElvaine's knowledge of things evolutionary wouldn't get him a passing grade in an easy 101 class. He has an entire chapter on sex differences, where he bends over backwards to minimize these and downplay their significance -- then he bases his whole crazy story throughout the rest of the book on rather Victorian stereotypes about the sexes, particularly the shortcomings of males; i.e., men are uncivilized aggressive beasts, whereas women are gentle nurturing angels. In short, masculine/male = bad, feminine/female = good. You know the drill. It's called sexism...I could easily go on -- there's that much which can be made fun of here -- but will end by asking a salient question not posed by the book: if human nature is unchanged over historic times, why even bother with the Rorschach test of the dim uncertain past and pre-history when attempting to get at what that nature is? Why not just observe current behavior?
Rating: 
Summary: Pulling ourselves up by our bra straps....
Review: On Sunday, Novemeber 11, 2001, two months after the WTC and Pentagon disasters, the 'Washington Post' ran several articles concerning the future of Afghan women and all women living in Muslim dominated countries. One of these articles, entitled "The Birth of the Myth That Men Are Closer to God" by Robert S. McElvaine so intrigued me that I immediately ordered McElvaine's book EVE'S SEED from Amazon and read it. I've been a feminist ever since my father told me I could not grow up and be a priest. I don't know why he said that, as I had never shown any interest in the vocation, but the mere fact that he told me I could not do something provoked me to ask why? I've been asking why ever since, and though I left organized religion behind in a cloud of dust years ago, I still question the nature of the universe and my place in it, so, "naturally" I was intrigued with McElvaine's book. McElvaine is a historian, but he has included information from related social science fields as well as snippets of science. In fact, his book is a HUGE synopsis of LOTS of material that includes world literature and myths; literature from the American woman's movement; the Bible plus various interpretations of Jesus message; demography; anthropology; history; and psychology. At times he is overly reliant on fellow social scientists who have been somewhat discredited (Margaret Mead, Ashley Montague, Freud). However, McElvaine's summaries also include some recent material from more reputable sources. Although the book jacket categorizes McElvaine's book as 'Science/History' I would describe it as 'Woman's Studies/History/Religion'. Imagine a book entitled EVE'S SEED that discusses the science of human reproduction and fails to include material from THE OVARY OF EVE by Clara Pinto-Correia, especially when Pinto-Correia's book would have supported so many of McElvaine's contentions!! McElvaine also might have included better material to support his thesis that the "two sexes" are composed of biological organisms who form a bimodal distribution along a continuum. He mentions the disparities in male-female medical research, but fails to mention the most egregious example--the failure until recently to include women in the Framingham Heart Studies. (This latter is not an esoteric example. He cites Faludi's book BACKLASH over and over, and if I am not mistaken Faludi raises this point in her book.) At the beginning of 1960s resurgence in the women's movement, I was young and naive and actually thought, "Now the workplace will become a kinder, gentler place because women will bring their values to the office." Wrong!! Instead, the workplace has masculinzed many women. To "get ahead" one must become competitive, agressive, and a sycophant with an ability to laugh at things that aren't funny. As McElvaine points out, Sigourney Weaver's character in the film "Working Girl" (noxious female executive) is closer to the real thing than the sniveling little Melanie Griffin. The female executives I have known are TOUGH cookies!! (Think Margaret Thatcher. Think Madeline Albright!! Think Hillary Clinton!!) McElvaine's subtitle should have been "Religion, the Sexes and the Course of History." Although he does not include any real science, McElvaine does a great job of tackling the way the Judeo-Christian-Isalamic religions have "kept woman in her place" even though it would seem this was NOT the Jesus message. In fact, Jesus is a hero in McElvaine's book (along with Gandi, Martin Luther King, and other 'gentlemen'). I never liked 'Saint' Paul, and now I know why. Seems those early male Christian writers interpreted Jesus to suit their needs. Cover your head indeed!! Old Law is Dead -- they never even heard the message!! It was women who first recognized Jesus as the Christ and women who first saw him after the resurrection!! McElvaine does a fine job of articulating what he believes Jesus message really was (a feminine one about love) and how the church twisted it to suit its needs. McElvaine is not into Catholic bashing either. He points out that while Christianity was founded by a man of peace, Islam was founded by a man of war. He also says Calvin's Geneva was not a real great place for women and Martin Luther instructed his wife, a former nun, to stop singing the Ave Maria. McElvaine's book falls into the category I call "Pop" social science, but it would be wonderful for use in American Studies, Women's Studies, Sociology, History, or Religious Studies classes because it is provocative reading that just might be correct--depending on how you interpret the "facts".
Rating:
Summary: Womb envy????
Review: The entire book is outrageous nonsense. Womb envy???? Men are envious of women because men cannot have babies? And so men have to take revenge for this?? If this isn't lunacy then I don't know what is. For God's sake! Find me ANY man anywhere----say at a shopping center-----who burns with envy and hate because a pregnant woman walks by! The man gets to plant the seed while the woman has to carry the heavy baby for 9 months, suffer morning sickness, the pains of labor, and constant care for the infant! Isnt she the lucky one!!!
(...)
Perhaps McElvaine now will write a book proving that child abuse is due to "child envy"-----children are free to play while adults have to work. So adults are envious of children and have to put children in their place. There you have it! The explanation for child abuse.
There is no end to the nonsense! And to think this man actually "teaches" in a college!!!!!!
Rating:
Summary: Trite tripe
Review: This is a sad effort and sadder still that these ideas were published. The fact that any publisher believes that readers of social history would be interested in such a twisted analysis of the nature of man/woman and the development of societies is indeed sad. McElvaine is a longtime self promoting boor stuck in a jerkwater academic environment with way too much time for idle pondering. His imagination worked overdrive to produce this piece of fantasy. I guess if any of us had enough time on our hands we too could construct elaborate theories on the 'nature of things' and put enough of a self-loathing feminist slant on it to attract a fringe readership. That's what happened here. Don't waste your time. A disturbing aspect to this is that he's teaching the next generation of leaders.
Rating: 
Summary: The First Farmers
Review: This is not one of the better books I have read on history that predates mankind. Before reading the book I knew that women were the first farmers. The author uses this fact as the basis for thousands of years of discrimination against women. I do not buy the argument.
Rating:
Summary: Men are from women, not Mars
Review: This is the book I've been looking for. It explains the world we're living in right now. And where we've been. This book really gets to the root of the basic problem: men arn't able to be men because we're afraid of our femininity. So we're half-men, and we're so [angry] at being half-men that we take it out on women. We blame them for it. That's it in a nutshell. And it all started thousands of years ago, with the agricultural revolution, when we lost our place in society. We were out of a job. And we've been playing catch-up ever since. And still are today: it's still going on. NOTE: I'm writing this on the 10th day of the insane war we're waging on Iraq. After reading this book, you'll understand why these insecure, infantile itiots mask their impotence by waging war. We are at this moment witnessing the catastrophic consequences of the hyper-masculinity that he talks about. As long as we define man as "not-a-woman," we're [stuck.]
Rating:
Summary: Why Male Violence Rules the World
Review: This is truly an engaging and common sensical book that needs to be read by all the women and members of the male ruling class who are really interested in ridding the world of testosterone poisoning and the concomitant violence that we are forced to live with every day. Prof. McElvaine explains what we need to know if we are really going to move forward in our fight against war, poverty and all forms of violence. Brava..oops, bravo!
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