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A Story of Us
- A New Look at Human Evolution
- Narrated by: Mike Cooper
- Length: 10 hrs and 3 mins
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Fifty thousand years ago - merely a blip in evolutionary time - our Homo sapiens ancestors were competing for existence with several other human species, just as their precursors had done for millions of years. Yet something about our species distinguished it from the pack, and ultimately led to its survival while the rest became extinct. Just what was it that allowed Homo sapiens to become masters of the planet? Ian Tattersall, curator emeritus at the American Museum of Natural History, takes us deep into the fossil record to uncover what made humans so special.
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Publisher's summary
In a few decades, a torrent of new evidence and ideas about human evolution has allowed scientists to piece together a more detailed understanding of what went on thousands and even millions of years ago. We now know much more about the problems our ancestors faced, the solutions they found, and the trade-offs they made.
Our species' unique capacity for culture began to evolve millions of years ago, but it only really took off in the last few hundred thousand years. This capacity allowed our ancestors to survive and raise their difficult children during times of extreme climate chaos. Understanding how this has evolved can help us understand the cultural change and diversity that we experience today.
Lesley Newson and Peter Richerson, a husband-and-wife team based at the University of California, Davis, have spent years researching and collaborating with scholars from a wide range of disciplines to produce a deep history of humankind. In A Story of Us, they present this rich narrative and explain how the evolution of our genes relates to the evolution of our cultures. Newson and Richerson take listeners through seven stages of human evolution, beginning seven million years ago with the apes that were the ancestors of humans and today's chimps and bonobos. The story ends in the present day and offers a glimpse into the future.
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Who are you really. Who am I?
- By Annie M. on 10-28-14
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Becoming Wild
- How Animal Cultures Raise Families, Create Beauty, and Achieve Peace
- By: Carl Safina
- Narrated by: Carl Safina
- Length: 13 hrs and 51 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall5 out of 5 stars 151
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 124
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Story5 out of 5 stars 121
Some people insist that culture is strictly a human feat. What are they afraid of? This book looks into three cultures of other-than-human beings in some of Earth's remaining wild places. It shows how if you're a sperm whale, a scarlet macaw, or a chimpanzee, you too experience your life with the understanding that you are an individual in a particular community. You too are who you are not by genes alone; your culture is a second form of inheritance. And your culture, too, changes and evolves.
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5 out of 5 stars
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It all sinks in over the story—highly recommend
- By Knitting Fisherman on 06-13-20
By: Carl Safina
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Before the Dawn
- Recovering the Lost History of Our Ancestors
- By: Nicholas Wade
- Narrated by: Alan Sklar
- Length: 12 hrs and 49 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 925
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 516
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 517
Just in the last three years a flood of new scientific findings, driven by revelations discovered in the human genome, has provided compelling new answers to many long-standing mysteries about our most ancient ancestors, the people who first evolved in Africa and then went on to colonize the whole world. Nicholas Wade weaves this host of news-making findings together for the first time into an intriguing new history of the human story before the dawn of civilization.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Amazing information
- By Albert on 06-15-07
By: Nicholas Wade
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The Old Way
- A Story of the First People
- By: Elizabeth Marshall Thomas
- Narrated by: Elizabeth Marshall Thomas
- Length: 11 hrs and 23 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 109
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 68
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Story5 out of 5 stars 68
One of our most influential anthropologists reevaluates her long and illustrious career by returning to her roots and the roots of life as we know it. When Elizabeth Marshall Thomas first arrived in Africa to live among the Kalahari bushmen, she was 19, and these last surviving hunter-gatherers were living as humans had for 15,000 centuries. After a lifetime of interest in the bushmen, Thomas has come to see that their lifestyle reveals great, hidden truths about human evolution.
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4 out of 5 stars
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Interesting first hand experience
- By Victor on 05-25-07
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Sex, Time, and Power
- How Women's Sexuality Shaped Human Evolution
- By: Leonard Shlain
- Narrated by: Bob Souer
- Length: 14 hrs and 30 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 44
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 40
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 40
Sex, Time, and Power offers a tantalizing answer to an age-old question: Why did big-brained Homo sapiens suddenly emerge some 150,000 years ago? The key, according to Shlain, is female sexuality. Drawing on an awesome breadth of research, he shows how, long ago, the narrowness of the newly bipedal human female's pelvis and the increasing size of infants' heads precipitated a crisis for the species. Natural selection allowed for reconfiguration of hormonal cycles, entraining women with the periodicity of the moon - and imbuing women with the concept of time.
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3 out of 5 stars
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Interesting conjecture
- By DJKPP on 10-15-20
By: Leonard Shlain
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Blueprint
- The Evolutionary Origins of a Good Society
- By: Nicholas A. Christakis
- Narrated by: Nicholas A. Christakis
- Length: 14 hrs and 55 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 901
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 771
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 763
For too long, scientists have focused on the dark side of our biological heritage: our capacity for aggression, cruelty, prejudice, and self-interest. But natural selection has given us a suite of beneficial social features, including our capacity for love, friendship, cooperation, and learning. Beneath all our inventions - our tools, farms, machines, cities, nations - we carry with us innate proclivities to make a good society.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Many interesting thoughts
- By Jonas Blomberg Ghini on 06-01-19
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Unbound
- How Eight Technologies Made Us Human, Transformed Society, and Brought Our World to the Brink
- By: Richard L. Currier
- Narrated by: Noah Michael Levine
- Length: 10 hrs and 36 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 240
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 213
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Story4 out of 5 stars 212
Although we usually think of technology as something unique to modern times, our ancestors began to create the first technologies millions of years ago in the form of prehistoric tools and weapons. Over time, eight key technologies gradually freed us from the limitations of our animal origins.
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3 out of 5 stars
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Good facts, not much else
- By Joel B. Gordon on 10-30-16
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The Human Swarm
- How Our Societies Arise, Thrive, and Fall
- By: Mark W. Moffett
- Narrated by: Sean Patrick Hopkins
- Length: 15 hrs and 26 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 189
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 167
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 166
In this paradigm-shattering book, biologist Mark W. Moffett draws on findings in psychology, sociology, and anthropology to explain the social adaptations that bind societies. He explores how the tension between identity and anonymity defines how societies develop, function, and fail. Surpassing Guns, Germs, and Steel and Sapiens, The Human Swarm reveals how mankind created sprawling civilizations of unrivaled complexity - and what it will take to sustain them.
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1 out of 5 stars
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Worthless
- By Richard on 11-24-19
By: Mark W. Moffett
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The World Until Yesterday
- What Can We Learn from Traditional Societies?
- By: Jared Diamond
- Narrated by: Jay Snyder
- Length: 18 hrs and 31 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 1,165
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 970
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Story4 out of 5 stars 968
Most of us take for granted the features of our modern society, from air travel and telecommunications to literacy and obesity. Yet for nearly all of its six million years of existence, human society had none of these things. While the gulf that divides us from our primitive ancestors may seem unbridgeably wide, we can glimpse much of our former lifestyle in those largely traditional societies still or recently in existence.
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4 out of 5 stars
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A visit with our ancient ancestors
- By BRB on 01-30-13
By: Jared Diamond
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Our Inner Ape
- A Leading Primatologist Explains Why We Are Who We Are
- By: Frans de Waal
- Narrated by: Alan Sklar
- Length: 10 hrs and 14 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 567
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 287
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 291
We have long attributed man's violent, aggressive, competitive nature to his animal ancestry. But what if we are just as given to cooperation, empathy, and morality by virtue of our genes? What if our behavior actually makes us apes? What kind of apes are we?
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5 out of 5 stars
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I loved this book
- By Ruth on 06-22-07
By: Frans de Waal
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Our Wild Calling
- How Connecting with Animals Can Transform Our Lives - and Save Theirs
- By: Richard Louv
- Narrated by: Graham Winton
- Length: 11 hrs and 14 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 51
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 42
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 42
Richard Louv's landmark book, Last Child in the Woods, inspired an international movement to connect children and nature. Now Louv redefines the future of human-animal coexistence. Our Wild Calling explores these powerful and mysterious bonds and how they can transform our mental, physical, and spiritual lives, serve as an antidote to the growing epidemic of human loneliness, and help us tap into the empathy required to preserve life on Earth.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Sharing our world
- By Scott Br on 10-06-21
By: Richard Louv
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Mother Nature Is Trying to Kill You
- A Lively Tour Through the Dark Side of the Natural World
- By: Dan Riskin
- Narrated by: Dan Riskin
- Length: 5 hrs and 52 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 77
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 63
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 63
It may be a wonderful world, but as Dan Riskin explains, it's also a dangerous, disturbing, and disgusting one. At every turn, it seems, living things are trying to eat us, poison us, use our bodies as their homes, or have us spread their eggs. In Mother Nature Is Trying to Kill You, Riskin is our guide through the natural world at its most gloriously ruthless. Using the seven deadly sins as a road map, Riskin offers dozens of jaw-dropping examples that illuminate how brutal nature can truly be.
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2 out of 5 stars
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Just a bunch of random animal behaviors.
- By Goddess on 05-18-23
By: Dan Riskin
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Pandora's Seed
- The Unforeseen Cost of Civilization
- By: Spencer Wells
- Narrated by: Spencer Wells
- Length: 6 hrs and 40 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4 out of 5 stars 167
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Performance4 out of 5 stars 67
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Story4 out of 5 stars 68
This new book by Spencer Wells, the internationally known geneticist, anthropologist, author, and director of the Genographic Project, focuses on the seminal event in human history: mankind's decision to become farmers rather than hunter-gatherers.
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3 out of 5 stars
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Short and unfocused, but often quite interesting.
- By Alan on 06-23-10
By: Spencer Wells
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The Sediments of Time
- My Lifelong Search for the Past
- By: Meave Leakey, Samira Leakey
- Narrated by: Susan Lyons
- Length: 14 hrs and 35 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 48
-
Performance5 out of 5 stars 40
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 40
Preeminent paleoanthropologist Meave Leakey brings us along on her remarkable journey to reveal the diversity of our early pre-human ancestors and how past climate change drove their evolution. She offers a fresh account of our past, as recent breakthroughs have allowed new analysis of her team’s fossil findings and vastly expanded our understanding of our ancestors. Meave’s own personal story is replete with drama, from thrilling discoveries on the shores of Lake Turkana to run-ins with armed herders and every manner of wildlife, to raising her children....
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5 out of 5 stars
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Brilliant!
- By tess koffler on 04-07-21
By: Meave Leakey, and others
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Cannibalism
- By: Bill Schutt
- Narrated by: Tom Perkins
- Length: 8 hrs and 56 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 237
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 209
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 208
Eating one's own kind is a completely natural behavior in thousands of species, including humans. Throughout history we have engaged in cannibalism for reasons related to famine, burial rites, and medicine. Cannibalism has also been used as a form of terrorism and as the ultimate expression of filial piety. With unexpected wit and a wealth of knowledge, Bill Schutt takes us on a tour of the field, exploring exciting new avenues of research and investigating questions like why so many fish eat their offspring and some amphibians consume their mothers' skin.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Strange Topic, Great Book, Loved It
- By Fenna on 06-15-17
By: Bill Schutt
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Population Wars
- A New Perspective on Competition and Coexistence
- By: Greg Graffin
- Narrated by: Tom Zingarelli
- Length: 10 hrs and 20 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall5 out of 5 stars 123
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 107
-
Story5 out of 5 stars 109
From the very beginning, life on Earth has been defined by war. Today, those first wars continue to be fought around and literally inside us, influencing our individual behavior and that of civilization as a whole. War between populations - whether between different species or between rival groups of humans - is seen as an inevitable part of the evolutionary process. The popular concept of "the survival of the fittest" explains and often excuses these actions.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Life Changing Book. No other like it.
- By Abraham R. Herrick-Rough on 05-16-16
By: Greg Graffin
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The World Before Us
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Just in the last three years a flood of new scientific findings, driven by revelations discovered in the human genome, has provided compelling new answers to many long-standing mysteries about our most ancient ancestors, the people who first evolved in Africa and then went on to colonize the whole world. Nicholas Wade weaves this host of news-making findings together for the first time into an intriguing new history of the human story before the dawn of civilization.
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Amazing information
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A Short History of Humanity
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Fascinating Subject... Soporific Reader
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3 out of 5 stars
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Fascinating Subject... Soporific Reader
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A Pocket History of Human Evolution
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 49
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 41
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A Pocket History of Human Evolution brings us up-to-date on the exploits of all our ancient relatives. Paleoanthropologist Silvana Condemi and science journalist François Savatier consider what accelerated our evolution: Was it tools, our "large" brains, language, empathy, or something else entirely? And why are we the sole survivors among many early bipedal humans? Their conclusions reveal the various ways ancient humans live on today - from gossip as modern "grooming" to our gendered division of labor - and what the future might hold for our strange and unique species.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Well presented and very informative.
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Evolution
- The Human Odyssey
- By: Scientific American
- Narrated by: Kate Mulligan
- Length: 7 hrs and 22 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 149
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 126
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 126
In this audiobook, The Human Odyssey, we explore the evolution of those characteristics that make us human. The first section looks at our family tree and why some branches survived and not others. Swings in climate are emerging as a factor in what traits succeeded and failed; meanwhile, DNA analyses show that Homo sapiens interbred with other human species, which played a key role in our survival.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Great selection of human evolution articles (2016)
- By Sulpicia on 11-13-20
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Ancestors in Our Genome
- The New Science of Human Evolution
- By: Eugene E. Harris
- Narrated by: Chris Sorensen
- Length: 10 hrs and 2 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4 out of 5 stars 16
-
Performance3 out of 5 stars 14
-
Story4 out of 5 stars 14
In Ancestors in Our Genome, molecular anthropologist Eugene E. Harris presents us with a complete and up-to-date account of the evolution of the human genome and our species. Written from the perspective of population genetics, and in simple terms, the book traces human origins back to their source among our earliest human ancestors, and explains many of the most intriguing questions that genome scientists are currently working to answer.
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2 out of 5 stars
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Population genetics textbook with bad narrator
- By Talia on 05-25-20
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The Origin of Humankind
- By: Richard Leakey
- Narrated by: John Curless
- Length: 6 hrs and 3 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 12
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 11
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 11
The Origin of Humankind is Richard Leakey's personal view of the development of Homo sapiens. At the heart of his new picture of evolution is the introduction of a heretical notion: Once the first apes walked upright, the evolution of modern humans became possible and perhaps inevitable. From this one evolutionary step comes all the other evolutionary refinements and distinctions that set the human race apart from the apes.
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5 out of 5 stars
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No Monkey Business
- By Fred V. on 09-17-22
By: Richard Leakey
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Remnants of Ancient Life
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- By: Dale Greenwalt
- Narrated by: Christopher Ragland
- Length: 7 hrs and 49 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 9
-
Performance5 out of 5 stars 6
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 6
This audiobook narrated by Christopher Ragland describes the revolution in science that is transforming our understanding of extinct life.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Recommended.
- By Todd Woollen on 02-11-23
By: Dale Greenwalt
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First Steps
- How Upright Walking Made Us Human
- By: Jeremy DeSilva
- Narrated by: Kaleo Griffith
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- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 142
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 120
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Story5 out of 5 stars 118
Blending history, science, and culture, a stunning and highly engaging evolutionary story exploring how walking on two legs allowed humans to become the planet’s dominant species.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Mammalian Bipedalism's Many Layers
- By Sarah C. on 06-07-22
By: Jeremy DeSilva
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Origin
- A Genetic History of the Americas
- By: Jennifer Raff
- Narrated by: Tanis Parenteau, Jennifer Raff - Interview, Yvonne Russo - Interview
- Length: 9 hrs and 12 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4 out of 5 stars 230
-
Performance4 out of 5 stars 202
-
Story4 out of 5 stars 198
Origin is the story of who the first peoples in the Americas were, how and why they made the crossing, how they dispersed south, and how they lived based on a new and powerful kind of evidence: their complete genomes. Origin provides an overview of these new histories throughout North and South America, and a glimpse into how the tools of genetics reveal details about human history and evolution.
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5 out of 5 stars
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A Superb Account Of The Science Of Indigenous American Anthropology
- By Linda S. on 02-21-22
By: Jennifer Raff
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How to Argue with a Racist
- What Our Genes Do (and Don't) Say About Human Difference
- By: Adam Rutherford
- Narrated by: Adam Rutherford
- Length: 4 hrs and 45 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 116
-
Performance5 out of 5 stars 99
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 99
Racist pseudoscience is on the rise - fueling hatred, feeding nationalism, and seeping into our discourse on everything from sports to intelligence. Even the well-intentioned repeat stereotypes based on "science", because cutting-edge genetics are hard to grasp - and all too easy to distort. Paradoxically, misconceptions are multiplying amid today's unprecedented surge of research on human genetics. We've never had a clearer picture of who we are and where we come from, and the science, when accurately understood, is a powerful and definitive ally against racism.
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3 out of 5 stars
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Terrible argument repeated ad-nauseum
- By Niall on 11-17-20
By: Adam Rutherford
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Kindred
- By: Rebecca Wragg Sykes
- Narrated by: Rebecca Wragg Sykes
- Length: 16 hrs and 26 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 351
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 292
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 290
In Kindred, Neanderthal expert Becky Wragg Sykes shoves aside the cliché of the shivering ragged figure in an icy wasteland and reveals the Neanderthal you don’t know, who lived across vast and diverse tracts of Eurasia and survived through hundreds of thousands of years of massive climate change. Using a thematic rather than chronological approach, this book will shed new light on where they lived, what they ate and the increasingly complex Neanderthal culture that is being discovered.
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3 out of 5 stars
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Horrible Recording/Sound Quality
- By Howard Houchen on 11-24-20
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Extinctions
- How Life Survives, Adapts and Evolves
- By: Michael J. Benton
- Narrated by: Peter Noble
- Length: 9 hrs and 39 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 5
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 4
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Story5 out of 5 stars 4
Cutting-edge techniques across biology, chemistry, physics, and geology have transformed our understanding of the deep past, including the discovery of a previously unknown mass extinction. This compelling evidence, revealing a series of environmental crises resulting in the near collapse of life on Earth, illuminates our current dilemmas in exquisite detail.
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3 out of 5 stars
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Interesting read
- By Anonymous User on 02-10-24
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Almost Human
- The Astonishing Tale of Homo Naledi and the Discovery That Changed Our Human Story
- By: Lee Berger, John Hawks
- Narrated by: Donald Corren
- Length: 6 hrs and 34 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 812
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 703
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 704
A story of defiance and determination by a controversial scientist, this is Lee Berger's own take on finding Homo naledi, an all-new species on the human family tree and one of the greatest discoveries of the 21st century. In 2013, Lee Berger, a National Geographic explorer-in-residence, heard of a cache of bones in a hard-to-reach underground cave in South Africa. He put out a call around the world for petite collaborators - men and women small and adventurous enough to be able to squeeze through eight-inch tunnels to reach a sunless cave forty feet underground. It worked.
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5 out of 5 stars
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A deep story on the rocky trail to human origins
- By Peter Matthews on 01-14-19
By: Lee Berger, and others
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Some Assembly Required
- Decoding Four Billion Years of Life, from Ancient Fossils to DNA
- By: Neil Shubin
- Narrated by: Marc Cashman
- Length: 7 hrs and 28 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 299
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 249
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 249
Over billions of years, ancient fish evolved to walk on land, reptiles transformed into birds that fly, and apelike primates evolved into humans that walk on two legs, talk, and write. For more than a century, paleontologists have traveled the globe to find fossils that show how such changes have happened.
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2 out of 5 stars
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Interesting but thin. ANNOYING narration
- By MSB on 04-10-20
By: Neil Shubin
What listeners say about A Story of Us
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- Anonymous User
- 08-21-23
Excellent All Around
Hearing human evolution from this perspective was completely captivating, I couldn’t stop listening. The narrator was super engaging and made the whole experience all the more terrific.
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story4 out of 5 stars
- v
- 10-29-23
Creative license taken
A mix of creative fiction (based on science) and evolution thru an anthropological lens. I found it interesting. Loved the narrator. But some may not like the fictional stories told throughout.
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- Kira Stegner
- 06-28-23
I loved it!
I’m fascinated in the development of the human species. This book was interesting and informative and I couldn’t put it down! I loved the story montages of each of the development stages! It really helped to bring each species to life, in a way, helping to illustrate a possible scenario.
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- Casey B.
- 07-22-22
A glimpse into the lives of our ancestors.
Brilliant story telling. A glimpse at what actual life may have been like at the various stages of our evolution. Highly recommend!
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1 person found this helpful
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Overall1 out of 5 stars
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Performance2 out of 5 stars
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Story1 out of 5 stars
- Amazon Customer
- 03-10-23
Crap
This felt like watching the land before time. just made up bs. It also seems to be trying to convince you that the patriarchy is the best way to live. the readers voice is dull to the point of hypnosis, maybe that's the point.
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