Creatures of Cain

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After World War II, defining a universal human nature became urgent. This work charts the rise and fall of a theory in Cold War America that attributed human evolutionary success to a unique capacity for murder. Utilizing extensive archival materials and interviews, Erika Lorraine Milam illustrates how proponents of the "killer ape" theory leveraged a burgeoning postwar market for intellectual paperbacks and a widespread belief in science's ability to address humanity's challenges, including fundamental questions of identity. The theory quickly permeated colloquial science publications, late-night television, classrooms, political discourse, and Hollywood. However, scientists were deeply divided, with disagreements focused on race and gender. In the 1970s, the theory collapsed when primatologists found that chimpanzees also kill their own species. This discovery dismantled notions of human exceptionalism based on violence, yet some evolutionists began to advocate for a shared history of aggression between chimpanzees and humans, while others dismissed these ideas as oversimplifications. This broad account of a significant episode in American science argues that the legacy of the killer ape theory endures today, reinforcing the belief that science can resolve the fundamental dilemmas of human nature.