The Book of Humans A Brief History of Culture, Sex, War, and the Evolution of Us

“Rutherford describes [The Book of Humans] as being about the paradox of how our evolutionary journey turned ‘an otherwise average ape’ into one capable of creating complex tools, art, music, science, and engineering. It’s an intriguing question, one his book sets against descriptions of the infinitely amusing strategies and antics of a dizzying array of animals.”—The New York Times Book Review

Publisher's Note: The Book of Humans was previously published in hardcover as Humanimal.

In this new evolutionary history, geneticist Adam Rutherford explores the profound paradox of the human animal. Looking for answers across the animal kingdom, he finds that many things once considered exclusively human are not: We aren’t the only species that “speaks,” makes tools, or has sex outside of procreation. Seeing as our genome is 98 percent identical to a chimpanzee’s, our DNA doesn’t set us far apart, either. How, then, did we develop the most complex culture ever observed? The Book of Humans proves that we are animals indeed—and reveals how we truly are extraordinary.

Adam Rutherford, PhD, is a science writer and broadcaster. He studied genetics at University College London, and during his PhD on the developing eye, he was part of a team that identified the first known genetic cause of a form of childhood blindness. His previous books are A Brief History of Everyone Who Ever Lived—finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award in nonfiction—and Creation, which was shortlisted for the Wellcome Book Prize. He writes and presents BBC’s flagship weekly Radio 4 program Inside Science; The Cell for BBC Four; and Playing God (on the rise of synthetic biology) for the leading science series Horizon; in addition to writing for the Guardian.