A fully updated edition of one of the most original accounts of evolution ever written.
‘Extraordinarily detailed, serious and engaging’ Daily Mail
‘One of the richest accounts of evolution ever’ Financial Times
‘Dizzying . . . fresh, exhilarating’ Daily Telegraph
The Ancestor’s Tale is a dazzling, four-billion-year pilgrimage to the origins of us all. Richard Dawkins and Yan Wong take us on an exhilarating reverse journey through evolution, from present-day humans back to the microbial beginnings of life. It is a journey happily interrupted by meetings of fellow modern animals (as well as plants, fungi and bacteria) similarly tracing their evolutionary path back through history. As each evolutionary pilgrim tells their tale, Dawkins and Wong shed light on topics such as speciation, sexual selection and extinction.
Written with unparalleled wit, clarity and intelligence, taking in new scientific discoveries of the past decade and including new ‘tales’, illustrations and fractal diagrams, The Ancestor’s Tale shows us just how remarkable we are.
‘A new chronicle of life, wonderfully illustrated, from this great evolutionist’ Economist
‘The result is not just a wealth of ideas about how living things evolved, but a strong sense of the urgency and absorption with which science is done’ Independent
‘The Ancestor’s Tale achieves the almost impossible: it makes biology . . . interesting again’ Lancet
‘This is epic stuff indeed and Mr Dawkins carries it off with triumphant skill, never sacrificing the complexity of his argument to the voracious god of dumbing down’ Wall Street Journal
See what readers are saying:
‘[An] eminently readable book, fizzing with evidence, anecdote, theories and speculation’ ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
‘These essays are marvels of wit and models of scientific integrity’ ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
‘If this is the only pilgrimage you undertake during your lifetime, I’m sure you will find it a most rewarding one’ ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
Reviews
One of the richest accounts of evolution ever written
In this extraordinary book, Dawkins turns chronicler. He does so with a clever twist that avoids the perennial problem of evolutionary history-telling ... As a contribution to the history of ideas this book is well worthy of Britain's top public intellectual. The arguments are as sharply honed as we have come to expect from Dawkins
No other book I have read has given me such a dizzyingly immediate sense of the vastness and strangeness of the changes brought about by evolution over the eons, or how intimately all life is bound together ... THE ANCESTOR'S TALE makes you feel you have seen the world in a fresh, exhilarating way
THE ANCESTOR'S TALE achieves the almost impossible: it makes biology interesting again
Should be given to all young persons starting out on their exploration of the world. It will excite their curiosity and awe and prove to them that the world is inexhaustible in its fascination