The term ‘ricochet’ is a means to discuss unintended consequences, rapidly delivered information and viral outbreaks, but it is also used to describe the way in which sound echoes or reverberates against objects in space.

The book centres around two forms of biological change: organic mutation and the more recent field of epigenetics. Culture, it is argued, alters not only our minds, but also the very bodies in which we live.

It is important to note that the work of cultural epigenetics developed here argues for the determination of human biology by culture and not the other way around. That cultural expressions can be shown to replicate in cyclical patterns over time does not mean that they are inevitable.

Intertwining these fields of investigation the author draws on the work of Hannah Arendt, Ibram Xolani Kendi, Judith Butler and others to develop a philosophy of change grounded in comparative cultural anthropology.