The Origins of the New: Novelty and Innovation in the History of Life, Culture, and Technology

By Douglas H. Erwin

A visionary look at how novel attributes arise and become transformative innovations in nature, culture, and technology

The Origins of the New presents a revolutionary approach to evolutionary success in all realms of life. In this groundbreaking book, Douglas Erwin takes readers on a dazzling excursion across science and history to explore how evolution generates new and enduring features in biology, culture, and technology.

Erwin begins by tracing how thinkers from Darwin's time to the present day have sought to discover the driving mechanisms of evolutionary novelty. He then lays out compelling empirical evidence for separating novelty from innovation, showing how novelty involves the emergence of unique characteristics while innovation has to do with the success of those characteristics across time. Erwin develops a unifying conceptual framework for these powerful dynamics, demonstrating how they have shaped everything from the evolution of avian feathers and flight to the creation of human language and the breathtaking advances in digital computing we're witnessing today.

A landmark work that redefines our understanding of the changes happening all around us, The Origins of the New reveals how the forces of novelty and innovation are the same across nature and culture, continually producing new forms and refashioning the world as we know it.

Published in association with the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History, Washington, DC

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0691178941
• ISBN13: 9780691178943
• Release Date: February 2026
• Publisher: Princeton University Press
• Length: 464 Pages