The Descent of Man says absolutely nothing new. The illustrations are great, the style is accessible, and I broadly agree with what the author has to say, but the whole thing feels an awful lot like 'mansplaining' to me. Perhaps I'm not the intended audience.

Grayson Perry - a cross-dressing, white, middle-class heterosexual man (by his own frequent in-text admission) - essentially rehashes feminist arguments from the past half a century, making 'bold' statements that invariably begin with a cautionary and unnecessary 'I think'. He doesn't need to think; feminists have been saying this stuff for decades.

But isn't that the age-old problem of patriarchy? Women can scream until they're blue in the face and nobody hears them. Enter a cross-dressing, white, middle-class heterosexual man and suddenly other men stand up and take notice.

For that reason, I'm glad Grayson Perry wrote this book, even if he has 'borrowed' feminist analysis and presented it as his own. Perhaps a man or two might read and take note.