Genes, Peoples and Languages - Hardcover

Cavalli-Sforza, Luigi Luca

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0865475296 ISBN 13: 9780865475298

Publisher: North Point Pr, 2000

Synopsis

A distinguished expert in genetics offers an explanation and exploration of his lifelong research into humankind's genetic heritage, discussing where humans evolved, how societies spread through the world, how languages develop, the nature of race, and much more.

About this title

Review:

Jared Diamond says, "It would be a slight exaggeration to say that LL Cavalli-Sforza studies everything about everybody, because actually he is "only" interested in what genes, languages, archaeology, and culture can teach us about the history and migrations of everybody for the last several hundred thousand years". Cavalli-Sforza has been the leading architect of a revolution (even a paradigm shift) in human genetics since the 1960s. Because of his work, geneticists no longer think that the human species is divided into colour-coded races. Cavalli-Sforza's studies of the transmission of family names in Italy, of the relationship between human genes and languages, of migration and marriage, are the benchmarks of our biological self-understanding.

Genes, Peoples, and Languages is less personal than Cavalli-Sforza's preceding book, The Great Human Diasporas: The History of Diversity and Evolution. And it is far more compact that the magisterial The History and Geography of Human Genes. Instead, it is an excellent overview of Cavalli-Sforza's many-faceted approach to human history and our present condition. It is that rarest of achievements, holistic without any trace of mushy-mindedness. --Mary Ellen Curtin

Review:

"Effectively communicates complex ideas for a general audience without sacrificing the important technical details that underlie them; thus it should be of great interest to professional as well as lay readers."--Theodore G. Schurr, "American Scientist

About this edition

• Publisher: North Point Pr
• Publication date: 2000
• ISBN 10: 0865475296
• ISBN 13: 9780865475298
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 227