Humans: A Monstrous History

Join award-winning historian and author Surekha Davies as she explores why humans make monsters and what monsters tell us about humanity.

Her book Humans: A Monstrous History (University of California Press, 2025) tells a transregional history from antiquity to the present, revealing how people have categorized beings in and beyond the world, perceived otherness, and sought to control those who challenged social orders.

Monsters are central to how we think about the human condition. Davies reveals how people have defined the human in relation to everything from apes to zombies, and how they invented race, gender, and nations along the way. With rich, evocative storytelling that braids together ancient gods and generative AI, Frankenstein’s monster and E.T., Humans: A Monstrous History shows how monster-making is about control: it defines who gets to count as normal.

Surekha Davies is an author, historian, and speaker. Her first book, Renaissance Ethnography and the Invention of the Human: New Worlds, Maps and Monsters (Cambridge University Press, 2016), won the Morris D. Forkosch Prize and the Roland H. Bainton Prize. She has written about biology, anthropology, and monsters in the Times Literary Supplement, Nature, Science, and Aeon.

Our Science and Society speaker series explores the history of science embedded in our everyday lives. We invite scientists, historians, policymakers, and educators for engaging, in-depth conversations that expand our perspectives. Program formats include lectures, interviews, roundtables, and book launches. Science and Society events are curated for an adult audience, fostering curiosity, conversation, and interactivity. Each evening concludes with a free reception with the speakers.

Host or Publisher Science History Institute