The Body in Motion: Its Evolution and Design

In The Body in Motion, author Theodore Dimon confronts a simple yet crucial task: to make sense of our amazing design. This comprehensive guide demonstrates the functions and evolution of specific body systems, explaining how they cooperate to form an upright, intelligent, tool-making marvel, capable of great technological and artistic achievement. Enhanced with 162 beautifully rendered full-color illustrations, the book opens with an introduction to the origins of movement, leading the reader on a journey through time and evolution—from fish to amphibian, quadruped to primate—showing how humans became the preeminent moving beings on the planet.

Delving deeper into our upright support system, The Body in Motion clearly describes the workings of the hands and upper limbs; the pelvic girdle; the feet and lower limbs; breathing; the larynx and throat musculature; and more. Central to the book is the idea that it is our upright posture that makes it possible for us to move in an infinite variety of ways, to manipulate objects, to form speech, and to perform the complex rotational movements that underlie many of our most sophisticated skills. These systems, Dimon argues persuasively, have helped us build, invent, create art, explore the world, and imbue life with a contemplative, spiritual dimension that would otherwise not exist.