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The Ancestor's Tale: A Pilgrimage to the Dawn of Evolution
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Binding: Paperback
Dewey Decimal Number: 576.8
EAN: 9780618619160
ISBN: 061861916X
Label: Mariner Books
Manufacturer: Mariner Books
Number Of Items: 1
Number Of Pages: 688
Publication Date: September 02, 2005
Publisher: Mariner Books
Studio: Mariner Books
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Editorial Review:
Just as we trace our personal family trees from parents to grandparents and so on back in time, so in The Ancestor's Tale Richard Dawkins traces the ancestry of life. As he is at pains to point out, this is very much our human tale, our ancestry. Surprisingly, it is one that many otherwise literate people are largely unaware of. Hopefully Dawkins's name and well deserved reputation as a best selling writer will introduce them to this wonderful saga.
The Ancestor's Tale takes us from our immediate human ancestors back through what he calls `concestors,' those shared with the apes, monkeys and other mammals and other vertebrates and beyond to the dim and distant microbial beginnings of life some 4 billion years ago. It is a remarkable story which is still very much in the process of being uncovered. And, of course from a scientist of Dawkins stature and reputation we get an insider's knowledge of the most up-to-date science and many of those involved in the research. And, as we have come to expect of Dawkins, it is told with a passionate commitment to scientific veracity and a nose for a good story. Dawkins's knowledge of the vast and wonderful sweep of life's diversity is admirable. Not only does it encompass the most interesting living representatives of so many groups of organisms but also the important and informative fossil ones, many of which have only been found in recent years.
Dawkins sees his journey with its reverse chronology as `cast in the form of an epic pilgrimage from the present to the past [and] all roads lead to the origin of life.' It is, to my mind, a sensible and perfectly acceptable approach although some might complain about going against the grain of evolution. The great benefit for the general reader is that it begins with the more familiar present and the animals nearest and dearest to us—our immediate human ancestors. And then it delves back into the more remote and less familiar past with its droves of lesser known and extinct fossil forms. The whole pilgrimage is divided into 40 tales, each based around a group of organisms and discusses their role in the overall story. Genetic, morphological and fossil evidence is all taken into account and illustrated with a wealth of photos and drawings of living and fossils forms, evolutionary and distributional charts and maps through time, providing a visual compliment and complement to the text. The design also allows Dawkins to make numerous running comments and characteristic asides. There are also numerous references and a good index.-- Douglas Palmer
With unparalleled wit, clarity, and intelligence, Richard Dawkins, one of the world's most renowned evolutionary biologists, has introduced countless readers to the wonders of science in works such as The Selfish Gene. Now, in The Ancestor's Tale, Dawkins offers a masterwork: an exhilarating reverse tour through evolution, from present-day humans back to the microbial beginnings of life four billion years ago. Throughout the journey Dawkins spins entertaining, insightful stories and sheds light on topics such as speciation, sexual selection, and extinction. The Ancestor's Tale is at once an essential education in evolutionary theory and a riveting read.
Customer Reviews
Average Rating: 
Rating:  - Begs a pictorial companion
Oh lord! What can one add to 170+ reviews?
The Ancestor's Tale does something rarely done, and that is taking on the natural history of all life. There are a few paleontology books which attempt the same (and are well worth looking into) but here we have the more theoretical approach, infusing our modern understanding of genetics to create something really compelling.
My primary reason for bothering with a review was to point out two things almost necessitated by this ... Read More
Rating: - Dawkins' evolutionary tour de force walkthrough from humans to RNA worlds
The Ancestor's Tale may well be Dawkins most accomplished achievement on evolutionary biology although maybe not his most readable general science book. What he has done is to start with modern humans and to follow a phylogeny (the evolutionary tree) through geological time to the RNA world (precursors to DNA) covering the most important ancestors (called concestors) along with intermixed fascinating factual anecdotes. For all intents and purposes this is the evolution walkthrough that many have ... Read More
Rating: - Delightful
This book is an extremely enjoyable and edifying read. Dawkins writes with wit, fluency, clarity and erudition; very readable, though people without much biology background might find it tough going at times. I can hear Dawkins' voice as I read; the writing has that flowing conversational style. I'm going to hate to see this one end. I wish there were a million more books like this one, and that I could live 10000 years, and spend every hour of every day reading them.
Rating:  - Food for thought
If you enjoy reading science you'll find this right up your alley. The "working back through time" approach was a deft way to tackle such a broad suject. With some tight editing this could have been a 5 star review but there is a bit of redundancy and some points were drawn out further than they needed to be.
One thought that continually came to me while reading was how this book illustrates the enormous gap between what scientists know about evolution and what the general public THINKS ... Read More
Rating: - A Stroll Down Genetic Memory Lane
This was a very enjoyable book. Dawkins walks the reader backwards in time, introducing us to common ancestors with modern species. This is the opposite direction of most books, which tend to start with single celled organisms and then "advance" to human beings.
Dawkins writes well. This volume had very little polemics and a great deal of openness. At times Dawkins was quite willing to say "we don't know." Perhaps the one point he hammered home the most, especially with the direction of story ... Read More
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