Combining sociology, evolutionary biology, cladistic biology, and comparative neuroanatomy to examine human nature, Turner sees human nature as a series of overlapping complexes that are the outcome of the inherited legacy of great apes being fed through the transforming effects of a larger brain, speech, and culture.

Jonathan H. Turner is 38th University Professor of the University of California System; Research Professor, University of California, Santa Barbara; and Distinguished Professor at the University of California, Riverside. He is also Director of the Institute for Theoretical Social Science, Santa Barbara, California. He is the author of hundreds of research articles and the author of more than 40 distinguished books, including most recently The New Evolutionary Sociology (with Richard Machalek).

1 Humans by Nature? 2 Before Humans: Looking Back in Evolutionary Time 3 Why Humans Became the Most Emotional Animals on Earth 4 Why and How Did the Human Family Evolve? 5 Interpersonal Skills for Species Survival 6 The Elaboration of Humans' Inherited Nature 7 The Evolved Cognitive Complex and Human Nature 8 The Evolved Emotions Complex and Human Nature 9 The Evolved Psychology Complex and Human Nature 10 The Evolved Interaction Complex and Human Nature 11 The Evolved Community Complex and Human Nature 12 Human Nature and the Evolution of Mega Societies: Implications for Species and Personal Survival on Planet Earth