About this item
Highlights
- In a journey across four continents, acclaimed science writer Steve Olson traces the origins of modern humans and the migrations of our ancestors throughout the world over the past 150,000 years.
- Author(s): Steve Olson
- 304 Pages
- Science, Life Sciences
Description
About the Book
A finalist for the National Book Award, this work follows 150,000 years of human history, tracing the origins of modern humans and the migration of our ancestors throughout the world. Maps throughout.Book Synopsis
In a journey across four continents, acclaimed science writer Steve Olson traces the origins of modern humans and the migrations of our ancestors throughout the world over the past 150,000 years. Like Jared Diamond's Guns, Germs and Steel, Mapping Human History is a groundbreaking synthesis of science and history. Drawing on a wide range of sources, including the latest genetic research, linguistic evidence, and archaeological findings, Olson reveals the surprising unity among modern humans and "demonstrates just how naive some of our ideas about our human ancestry have been" (Discover). Olson offers a genealogy of all humanity, explaining, for instance, why everyone can claim Julius Caesar and Confucius as forebears. Olson also provides startling new perspectives on the invention of agriculture, the peopling of the Americas, the origins of language, the history of the Jews, and more. An engaging and lucid account, Mapping Human History will forever change how we think about ourselves and our relations with others.
Steve Olson's Mapping Human History was a National Book Award finalist and won the Science-in-Society Award from the National Association of Science Writers. Olson has also written for the Atlantic Monthly, Scientific American, and Science.
Review Quotes
"Olson raises the level of discourse to a new high, assembling powerful evidence to support the no-races hypothesis." Kirkus Reviews
"An engaging and fast-paced look at a subject that has profound implications for our everyday lives." Publishers Weekly "An instructive overview of human history." Boston Herald --