Becoming Human: Evolution and Human Uniqueness (Harvest Book) - Softcover

Tattersall, Ian

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0156006537 ISBN 13: 9780156006538

Publisher: Mariner, 1999

Synopsis

In Becoming Human, noted anthropologist and renaissance man Ian Tattersall explores what makes us uniquely human, the qualities that set us apart from our ancestors, and the significance of our knowledge. A worldwide tour of discovery, Tattersall takes the reader from 30,000-year-old cave paintings in France and anthropological digs in Africa, to examining human behavior in a New York restaurant. And by offering wisdom gleaned from fossil remains, primate behavior, prehistoric art, and archaeology, Tattersall presents a stunning picture of where humankind evolved, how Darwin's theories have changed, and what we reliably know about modern-day human's capacity for love, language, and thought. Widely praised in the media, and an Amazon.com Top-10 bestseller, Becoming Human is an amazing trip into the past and into the future.

About this title

Review:

Monogamy. Bipedalism. Tools. Language. Intelligence. Why on earth did we develop all those tricks? Though it's trendy to underplay the differences between humans and other species, most of us just can't help noticing our often-striking peculiarities and wondering how they arose. Palaeontologist Ian Tattersall's story of human origins is as compelling as a well- designed museum exhibit--no surprise, as he is Curator of Anthropology for the American Museum of Natural History. His prose, while not flashy, is satisfyingly clear and unapologetically fascinated with its topic. Covering genetics, evolutionary theory, primate anatomy and archaeology, Becoming Human explains how and why our ancestors adapted to their surroundings to produce such clever, talented, immodest progeny. If you find it preposterous that a dumb, skinny ape can go from foraging for fruit and fleeing from lions to splitting the atom and solving Rubik's cube in just five million years, this book might change your mind. --Rob Lightner

Review:

"In this superbly written book, Ian Tattersall combines his unique knowledge of the human fossil record, Paleolithic archaeology, primate behavior, prehistoric art, as well as the workings of the human brain and our extraordinary cognitive powers, to offer a convincing scenario of how we have come to hold dominion over the earth."--Donald Johanson (author of From Lucy to Language) in Scientific American
"An ambitious effort . . . Tattersall meets the challenge commendably."--The San Diego Union-Tribune
"Although many popular anthropological accounts of the human species have been written, few are as engaging as that of Ian Tattersall."--Natural History

About this edition

• Publisher: Mariner
• Publication date: 1999
• ISBN 10: 0156006537
• ISBN 13: 9780156006538
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 276