A Pocket History of Human Evolution

How We Became Sapiens

By: Silvana Condemi, Francois Savatier

Narrated by: Christa Lewis

Why aren't we more like other apes? How did we win the evolutionary race? Find out how "wise" Homo sapiens really are.

Prehistory has never been more exciting: New discoveries are overturning long-held theories left and right. Stone tools in Australia date back 65,000 years -a time when, we once thought, the first Sapiens had barely left Africa. DNA sequencing has unearthed a new hominid group - the Denisovans - and confirmed that crossbreeding with them (and Neanderthals) made Homo sapiens who we are today.

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.

©2019 Silvana Condemi and François Savatier (P)2019 Tantor

Pretty Good Overview

As the title suggest. A pocket history of us. A great introduction into the evolution of humans.

Great book

Short to the point. Fun book with good take aways. Very interesting to those that want to know about our past.

updated and interesting

Includes new finding and insights. I found it interesting, covering a broad scope and consize.

Beautifully written, Ingormative & Concise

Condemi and Savatier deliver a beautiful synopsis of Human evolution. I look forward to reading a more comprehensive coverage of the material from the French paleoanthropologist and science writer.

What I find most enjoyable is how Professor Condemi presents the information as an amalgamation of intellects from all over the planet. How apropos that this academic enlightens about our ancestors from the perspective of a world citizen.

I long to read her book on Neanderthals, but alas, I cannot read in French. Hopefully, she will be able to offer an English language translation for it as she has for this book.

The smooth and relaxing narration

I liked the archeological evidence bolstering the arguments but most arguments made were simply reiterations of other authors statements. Not that this book isn’t valuable in the way is outlines simply from different sources the timeline of early hominid history, I just hoped for more conclusions being made from the evidence stated.