a brief history

‘A Brief History Of Everyone Who Ever Lived’ by Adam Rutherford packs our entire existence into 379 pages. Rutherford takes us on the journey of our evolution through DNA, and it’s a surprisingly interesting read. Within these pages you will learn how Homo sapiens and Neanderthals moved further afield, traveled and mated with each other across continents, over thousands of years, to become the myriad of people we are today. I usually blast through a book in a night or two, but this one took some time and concentration. It wasn’t difficult to read, just some terms and timelines to get a grasp of, yet Rutherford’s sense of humour keeps it light and engaging at just the right moments.

This is a book which will fascinate, engage and interest anyone who has a passion for genetics, science, and history. The perfect Christmas gift for anyone who is investigating their family tree, or loves to get stuck into a smart non-fiction book.

I thoroughly enjoyed the read and bored my partner with incessant facts that I discovered within the pages. Hit the Booktopia icon and buy it now!

3.5 out of 5 from me!

 

The Book Jacket

This is a story about you.

It is the history of who you are and how you came to be. It is unique to you, as it is to each of the 100 billion modern humans who have ever drawn breath. But it is also our collective story, because in every one of our genomes we each carry the history of our species – births, deaths, disease, war, famine, migration and a lot of sex.

Since scientists first read the human genome in 2001 it has been subject to all sorts of claims, counterclaims, and myths. In fact, as Adam Rutherford explains, our genomes should be read not as instruction manuals, but as epic poems. DNA determines far less than we have been led to believe about us as individuals but vastly more about us as a species.

In this captivating journey through the expanding landscape of genetics, Adam Rutherford reveals what our genes now tell us about history, and what history tells us about our genes. From Neanderthals to murder, from redheads to race, dead kings to plague, evolution to epigenetics, this is a demystifying and illuminating new portrait of who we are and how we came to be.

 

Buy it now from Booktopia