A magnificent account of human formation and history based on new discoveries about our genetic make-up.
Some of the most momentous events in 150,000 years of human existence - including our origins, our migrations across the globe, and our acquisition of language - were lost in the darkness of prehistory . But at last geneticists and other scientists are piecing together a history - the true story of Adam and Eve.
Steve Olson travelled through four continents to discover the development of humans and our expansion throughout the planet. He describes, for example, new thinking about how centres of agriculture sprang up among disparate foraging societies at roughly the same time.
He pinpoints why the ways in which the story of Judaism jibes with, and diverges from, biblical accounts. And using very recent genetic findings, he explodes the myth that human races are a biological reality.