The Origins of the New: Novelty and Innovation in the History of Life, Culture, and Technology by Erwin, Douglas H.
The Origins of the New: Novelty and Innovation in the History of Life, Culture, and Technology by Erwin, Douglas H.

The Origins of the New: Novelty and Innovation in the History of Life, Culture, and Technology

A visionary look at how novel attributes arise and become transformative innovations in nature, culture, and technology...
$90.00 USD
$90.00 USD
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Author: Douglas H. Erwin
Format: Hardcover
Language: English
Subtotal: $90.00
The Origins of the New: Novelty and Innovation in the History of Life, Culture, and Technology by Erwin, Douglas H.

The Origins of the New: Novelty and Innovation in the History of Life, Culture, and Technology

$90.00
The Origins of the New: Novelty and Innovation in the History of Life, Culture, and Technology by Erwin, Douglas H.

The Origins of the New: Novelty and Innovation in the History of Life, Culture, and Technology

$90.00
Author: Douglas H. Erwin
Format: Hardcover
Language: English
Description

A visionary look at how novel attributes arise and become transformative innovations in nature, culture, and technology

The Origins of the New presents a revolutionary approach to evolutionary success in all realms of life. In this groundbreaking book, Douglas Erwin takes readers on a dazzling excursion across science and history to explore how evolution generates new and enduring features in biology, culture, and technology.

Erwin begins by tracing how thinkers from Darwin's time to the present day have sought to discover the driving mechanisms of evolutionary novelty. He then lays out compelling empirical evidence for separating novelty from innovation, showing how novelty involves the emergence of unique characteristics while innovation has to do with the success of those characteristics across time. Erwin develops a unifying conceptual framework for these powerful dynamics, demonstrating how they have shaped everything from the evolution of avian feathers and flight to the creation of human language and the breathtaking advances in digital computing we're witnessing today.

A landmark work that redefines our understanding of the changes happening all around us, The Origins of the New reveals how the forces of novelty and innovation are the same across nature and culture, continually producing new forms and refashioning the world as we know it.

Published in association with the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History, Washington, DC

Author: Douglas H. Erwin
Publisher: Princeton University Press
Published: 02/17/2026
Pages: 456
Binding Type: Hardcover
Weight: 1.68lbs
Size: 9.30h x 6.10w x 1.50d
ISBN: 9780691178943

About the Author
Douglas H. Erwin is a leading paleobiologist whose books include Extinction: How Life on Earth Nearly Ended 250 Million Years Ago (Princeton) and (with James W. Valentine) The Cambrian Explosion: The Construction of Animal Biodiversity. He is an external faculty member at the Santa Fe Institute and was for many years a senior scientist and curator at the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History.
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