Humans have altered our environment in countless ways, yet we don’t always notice the finer details or even understand the long-term implications of our actions. Throughout Man-Made: The Evolutionary Influence of Humans, we explore the role of humans in nature from an evolutionary perspective—with a twist. Rather than focusing on the process of evolution in nature, we examine the ways in which humans have altered the evolutionary trajectory of almost every species we have encountered. From artificial selection, to altering the course of natural selection, to tolerating the new world we are creating, to investigating whether we have eliminated species entirely through overhunting or exploitation, we examine how humans have created a new evolutionary path. That path is now moving development in a new direction, and the ramifications will most certainly be staggering.

Lynn Anderson-Carpenter has been a faculty member at the University of Michigan since 2009. She currently lives with one very tolerant spouse, four dogs, one cat, seven guinea pigs, two tortoises, and way too many fish. In addition to writing, her hobbies include conducting scientific research, scuba diving, rephotographing, learning history, and trying to restore old cars.