See:

In the 1920s an international team of scientists and miners unearthed the richest evidence of human evolution the world had ever seen: Peking Man. After the communist revolution of 1949, Peking Man became a prominent figure in the movement to bring science to the people. In a new state with twin goals of crushing “superstition” and establishing a socialist society, the story of human evolution was the first lesson in Marxist philosophy offered to the masses. At the same time, even Mao’s populist commitment to mass participation in science failed to account for the power of popular culture—represented most strikingly in legends about the Bigfoot-like Wild Man—to reshape ideas about human nature. The People’s Peking Man is a skilled social history of twentieth-century Chinese paleoanthropology and a compelling cultural—and at times comparative—history of assumptions and debates about what it means to be human. By focusing on issues that push against the boundaries of science and politics, The People’s Peking Man offers an innovative approach to modern Chinese history and the history of science.

The Wiley Blackwell Companion to the History of Science is a single volume companion that discusses the history of science as it is done today, providing a survey of the debates and issues that dominate current scholarly discussion, with contributions from leading international scholars. Provides a single-volume overview of current scholarship in the history of science edited by one of the leading figures in the field Features forty essays by leading international scholars providing an overview of the key debates and developments in the history of science Reflects the shift towards deeper historical contextualization within the field Helps communicate and integrate perspectives from the history of science with other areas of historical inquiry Includes discussion of non-Western themes which are integrated throughout the chapters Divided into four sections based on key analytic categories that reflect new approaches in the field

A landmark book that draws on cutting-edge sciences to assess what precisely they have to say about human nature.

Leonardo Da Vinci's Elements of the Science of Man describes how Da Vinci integrates his mechanical observations and experiments in mechanics into underlying principles. This book is composed of 17 chapters that highlight the principles underlying Da Vinci's research in anatomical studies. Considerable chapters deal with Leonardo's scientific methods and the mathematics of his pyramidal law, as well as his observations on the human and animal movements. Other chapters describe the artist's anatomical approach to the mechanism of the human body, specifically the physiology of vision, voice, music, senses, soul, and the nervous system. The remaining chapters examine the mechanism of the bones, joints, respiration, heart, digestion, and urinary and reproductive systems.