The Book of Humans
A Brief History of Culture, Sex, War, and the Evolution of Us
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The Book of Humans
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Narrateur(s):
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Adam Rutherford
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Auteur(s):
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Adam Rutherford
À propos de cet audio
The best-selling author of A Brief History of Everyone Who Ever Lived investigates what it means to be human - and animal.
Evolutionary theory has long established that humans are animals: Modern Homo sapiens are primates who share an ancestor with monkeys and other great apes. Our genome is 98 percent identical to a chimpanzee's. And yet we think of ourselves as exceptional. Are we?
In this original and entertaining tour of life on Earth, Adam Rutherford explores the profound paradox of the "human animal". Looking for answers across the animal kingdom, he finds that many things once considered exclusively human are not: In Australia, raptors have been observed starting fires to scatter prey; in Zambia, a chimp named Julie even started a "fashion" of wearing grass in one ear. We aren't the only species that communicates, makes tools, or has sex for reasons other than procreation. But we have developed a culture far more complex than any other we've observed. Why has that happened, and what does it say about us?
The Book of Humans is a new evolutionary history - a synthesis of the latest research on genetics, sex, migration, and much more. It reveals what unequivocally makes us animals - and also why we are truly extraordinary.
PLEASE NOTE: When you purchase this title, the accompanying PDF will be available in your Audible Library along with the audio.
©2019 Adam Rutherford (P)2019 TantorCe que les critiques en disent
"A smooth, expert, and often startling history that emphasizes that no behavior separates us from other animals, but we remain an utterly unique species." (Kirkus)
Ce que les auditeurs disent de The Book of Humans
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Au global4 out of 5 stars
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Performance4 out of 5 stars
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Histoire4 out of 5 stars
- J. Bird
- 2025-06-04
How humans are, and are not, different from other animals and why
I came across this book through the Mindscape podcast. It sets out to explain how humans are, and are not, different from other animals, and why. Rutherford looks at technology (tool making and tool use), sexual behaviours, language, and consciousness, in animals and compared to humans, using fascinating examples from the lives of different animals. I learned a lot, but I could have gone without learning about necrophilia in penguins and otters.
Rutherford tries to make the case that humans are both animals, and something exceptional, and that we became that way through cumulative cultural knowledge accumulation and transmission, and through the interplay between genetic and culture evolution (gene culture co-evolution). Humans are different both in extent, and kind, from the rest of the animal kingdom.
His arguments are sometimes muddied by his (justifiable and correct) insistence that there are no simple explanations for how and why huamns and other animals developed, there ws no single spark that made a kind of ape into modern humans - evolution is gradual and blind and messy and multivariate, and random factors and sudden contingency play important roles. Humans rule the world because we have big brains and supple hands, while whales and dolphins have flippers, and because we have learned how to make and use tools effectively, and to continuously improve these technologies over consecutive generations through language.
Rutherford does not dig deep enough into the mechanics of cultural evolution, or how genetic and cultural evolution build on each other in feedback loops - for this read Joe Heinrich’s (much better, more complete) book The Secret of our Success. He does make a strong argument for why and when the human Cognitive Revolution happened: when human culture reached a tipping point, when recogniable modern human behaviour appeared, approximately 40-50k years ago (the start of Harari’s Sapiens history of humanity). Human populations had to reach a critical threshold in size for network effects to take hold, for cultural knowledge to lock-in and to start building and accelerating, as it continues to do today in our continuously changing world.
This was an interesting complement to other, more comprehensive books on gene culture co-evolution such as Henrich’s The Secret of our Success or Steven Mithen’s excellent The Language Puzzle. It is worth a quick read (or listen).
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Au global4 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Histoire4 out of 5 stars
- CKH
- 2024-10-02
Interesting popular science book
A bit scattered. Some fascinating ideas.
All very understandable for a reader without a scientific background.
He narrates his own work very well
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