Laura Betzig studies despotism and democracy in history. She's looked at the comparative record; done fieldwork in the Western Pacific; and read ancient, medieval and modern history. She's published roughly 100 articles--on subjects ranging from sex in the Old Testament, to the Oedipus Complex of British kings--and she's finished 3 books: Despotism and Differential Reproduction, a Darwinian View of History; Human Reproductive Behavior, a Darwinian Perspective; and Human Nature, a Critical Reader. She's spent the last couple of decades working on a history of the West.
Betzig got a PhD in anthropology as a student of Napoleon Chagnon at Northwestern, and has taught at the University of California and the University of Michigan. She's done TV in the US and Canada, the Netherlands and the UK; and her work has been featured in print sources like Time, the Economist, New Scientist, Discover, the Atlantic and US News & World Report. She's been a contributor to the Annual Question at Edge, and blogs on the The Political Animal for Psychology Today.
Laura lives with her husband, Paul Turke, near their children and grandchildren, on Strawberry Lake.