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Amazon product details
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Title:
The Ancestor's Tale: A Pilgrimage to the Dawn of Evolution
Type: Book
Author(s): Richard Dawkins
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
Pages: 688
Binding: Hardcover
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Amazon reviews |
| Product Description: |
The renowned biologist and thinker Richard Dawkins presents his most expansive work yet: a comprehensive look at evolution, ranging from the latest developments in the field to his own provocative views. Loosely based on the form of Chaucer's Canterbury Tales, Dawkins's Tale takes us modern humans back through four billion years of life on our planet. As the pilgrimage progresses, we join with other organisms at the forty "rendezvous points" where we find a common ancestor. The band of pilgrims swells into a vast crowd as we join first with other primates, then with other mammals, and so on back to the first primordial organism.
Dawkins's brilliant, inventive approach allows us to view the connections between ourselves and all other life in a bracingly novel way. It also lets him shed bright new light on the most compelling aspects of evolutionary history and theory: sexual selection, speciation, convergent evolution, extinction, genetics, plate tectonics, geographical dispersal, and more. The Ancestor's Tale is at once a far-reaching survey of the latest, best thinking on biology and a fascinating history of life on Earth. Here Dawkins shows us how remarkable we are, how astonishing our history, and how intimate our relationship with the rest of the living world. |
| Amazon.com Review: |
Just as we trace our personal family trees from parents to grandparents and so on back in time, so in The Ancestor's Tale Richard Dawkins traces the ancestry of life. As he is at pains to point out, this is very much our human tale, our ancestry. Surprisingly, it is one that many otherwise literate people are largely unaware of. Hopefully Dawkins's name and well deserved reputation as a best selling writer will introduce them to this wonderful saga. The Ancestor's Tale takes us from our immediate human ancestors back through what he calls ‘concestors,’ those shared with the apes, monkeys and other mammals and other vertebrates and beyond to the dim and distant microbial beginnings of life some 4 billion years ago. It is a remarkable story which is still very much in the process of being uncovered. And, of course from a scientist of Dawkins stature and reputation we get an insider's knowledge of the most up-to-date science and many of those involved in the research. And, as we have come to expect of Dawkins, it is told with a passionate commitment to scientific veracity and a nose for a good story. Dawkins's knowledge of the vast and wonderful sweep of life's diversity is admirable. Not only does it encompass the most interesting living representatives of so many groups of organisms but also the important and informative fossil ones, many of which have only been found in recent years. Dawkins sees his journey with its reverse chronology as ‘cast in the form of an epic pilgrimage from the present to the past [and] all roads lead to the origin of life.’ It is, to my mind, a sensible and perfectly acceptable approach although some might complain about going against the grain of evolution. The great benefit for the general reader is that it begins with the more familiar present and the animals nearest and dearest to us—our immediate human ancestors. And then it delves back into the more remote and less familiar past with its droves of lesser known and extinct fossil forms. The whole pilgrimage is divided into 40 tales, each based around a group of organisms and discusses their role in the overall story. Genetic, morphological and fossil evidence is all taken into account and illustrated with a wealth of photos and drawings of living and fossils forms, evolutionary and distributional charts and maps through time, providing a visual compliment and complement to the text. The design also allows Dawkins to make numerous running comments and characteristic asides. There are also numerous references and a good index.-- Douglas Palmer |
| by anonymous customer: |
An Amazing Journey
The Ancestor's Tale tells an amazing story, going back in time, of our distant ancestors. The book consists of 39 "Rendezvous" points where a set of species joins up with humans. I found myself being constantly amazed by the tales of our distant ancestor's. As I got further into the book I was always eager to find out what the next rendezvous with our ancestors would be.
Dawkins has a talent for taking an incredibly complex topic such as evolution and telling a tale that both stuns and educates. He maintains a style of writing that is always easy to read and understand while being packed full of information. Dawkins points out that humans aren't the end goal for evolution, but just another step influenced by natural selection. It is easy to fall into the thinking that we humans are somehow more "evolved" than other modern species, but really every living thing has evolved from the same ancestors and is equally "evolved", we have just evolved differently. He continues to reinforce this way of thinking throughout the book.
If you have any interest at all in how evolution works or what our distant ancestors were like then read this book. |
| by kramer_mj: |
Entertaining and Fun Read
Dawkins' exposition of the history of evolution was surprisingly entertaining and fun to read. Although at times a bit technical for a non-specialist reader, on the whole the book is a very easy read for such a dense topic.
My only gripe with the book is Dawkins' brief foray into philosophy in one of the Salamander's Tale -- in particular, a shockingly ill-informed critique of Plato's Theory of Forms and Ideas. Dawkins' misconceptions could be quickly cleared up by skimming through the _Phaedo_ (particularly 100b-d & 102b). However, despite his ignorant character assassination attempt on Plato, I agreed with Dawkins' overall point about the "tyranny of the discontinuous mind" (if not its purported origins).
In summary, I really enjoyed this book, and would highly recommend it to anyone interested in mankind's ancestors and evolution. |
| by anonymous customer: |
Can we get an abridged version?
If you went through the book, and removed every reference to a tail that had come before or would come later in the book you would probably shave off at least 50 pages. Indeed at times it seems as if he is just listing off what he said in previous chapters, there were three chapters in a row that referenced the same chapter to come later for the same reason. Outside of that it is written in Dawkins standard form of eloquence and is a great read. |
| by vanweerd: |
New Chapters in Dawkins Grand Opus
This a great book that can really change how you look at yourself and the world.
Other then that, my comments are on the overall arch of Dawkin's books. As I noted in a comment to another review:
1. Dawkins clearly makes a point of not repeating his prior stuff in all his books. He references almost all of his other books for details on examples briefly mentioned. For example, the evolution of the eye in "Climbing Mount Improbable". There is almost nothing about that in this book. In some respects, I found this annoying- I have to read other books :) On the other hand, I'm extremely pleased because I'm not afraid that I'm wasting my money on the other books. Thats not to say there isn't repetition- the book does need to stand alone. But it's limited and never creates boredom.
2. The awesome biological diversity of the world result in thousands of evolutionary examples and insights that could fill many books. So with that, I think the approach Dawkins takes in not repeating himself too much is very workable. And I don't get bored learning of new natural wonders.
3. It's much more recent, so there are new studies and information. The original reviewer mentions the Selfish Gene, which was written almost 30 years before this! With new DNA techniques molecular taxonomy has been completely developed and revolutionized genetics, taxonomy and evolutionary science. There is a lot of discussion of this and almost none of that is in The Selfish Gene or The Blind Watchmaker (it wasn't developed to a useful point until the last 15 years or so).
4. The structure is completely different, going back in time. It creates a very engaging narrative structure.
I'm currently reading his latest book- The Greatest Show On Earth- and again, he spends lots of time bringing different examples and new studies to light. I find his approach to writing books on the same topic over this career in this manner nothing short of brilliant. Each book is almost like subsequent chapters in the same larger book.
So my point is - even if you've read Dawkin's other books, it's worthwhile to continue on to his new ones. |
| by anonymous customer: |
A Remarkable Journey Through the Ages
This book is a fascinating trip through evolutionary history, and I recommend it to both casual readers and those who have an education in the biological sciences. I read this book while taking classes in both evolution and on the natural history of vertebrates and it helped me learned both about the smaller examples as well as the big picture. While the order of the book going from man back in time is a little odd, I think the reunion concept that he uses is a good device for engaging readers and keeping things simple. If I have any criticism it is that the book perhaps make evolution look a little more clean and linear than it is, but this probably makes the book a little more readable. |
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