A Review of "Becoming Human": Becoming human: A theory of ontogeny, by Tomasello, M., Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2019, $63.63 (hardcover), $24.00 (paperback), ISBN: 9780674988651. https://doi.org/10.4159/9780674988651.

In his book I Becoming Human: A Theory of Ontogeny i , Michael Tomasello provides an elegant, culturally aware, and evolutionarily informed account of what we share despite our differences: our uniquely human ontogenies. Inquisitive observers of human culture encounter a paradox: We treat the belief-systems, norms, and practices of our own communities as if they are a fixed part of our nature, yet across groups of people, the diversity of ways of being - and corresponding diversity of psychologies - suggests the opposite. Although one can read them serially or separately, the chapters are intentionally organized based on Tomasello's theoretical commitment to a causal order of importance: uniquely human communication requires perspective-taking, uniquely human social learning requires perspective-taking as well as language, and so on. [Extracted from the article]

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